Baker Tilly enables storage equipment manufacturer to automate shop floor and inform top floor

Client background

The largest U.S. manufacturer of above-ground storage tanks and processing equipment for the oil and natural gas exploration and production industry with more than 40 years of operating experience with two well-known industry brands. They have eight manufacturing plants and two distribution centers across Texas, Oklahoma and South Dakota, where the newest plant services the Bakken, Niobrara and Powder River shale plays.

The business challenge

For the past six years, the client has leveraged their Cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to enable true end-to-end visibility across its entire organization. They benefited from full control over user and security administration with four manufacturing facilities on a single instance of their Cloud ERP.

However, their Fiberglass facility was still relying on legacy systems to track manufacturing productivity. As a result, they were losing visibility within the organization making it difficult to integrate people, technologies and machines to provide a complete and connected view of its manufacturing business. Business leaders knew that current software would not provide the client the opportunity to scale as its business needs changed. They chose to partner with Baker Tilly, relying on the firm’s years of cross-industry and ERP experience, to help implement a Cloud ERP solution at the Fiberglass facility with a timeline of less than two months.

Strategy and solution

Baker Tilly collaborated with the client’s experienced implementation core team to develop a unique project plan, process documentation, test scripts, and ERP configuration that met the needs and timeline of their Fiberglass facility. Additionally, cross schemas were established to alleviate production data integrity issues from the legacy system and increase financial traceability during data migration. With Baker Tilly’s structured implementation methodology and combined 30 years of ERP implementation experience, the client’s key business process areas were correctly sequenced for a successful go-live.

The business impact

The new Cloud ERP system now enables the client’s Fiberglass facility to automate the plant floor and inform the top floor. The client’s core team and Baker Tilly consultants configured a Cloud environment allowing for production control and inventory management. As a result, they can be more competitive, efficient and responsive to its internal and external needs. Key benefits and improvements included:

• Improved financial visibility with a consolidated view of actionable data, across all facilities
• Increased manufacturing and inventory traceability through unique serialized inventory design
• Optimized fabrication sequencing through Lean Six Sigma methodology
• Enhanced “fiberglass cutting” operations by leveraging statistical analysis to reduced excessive labor non-value add
• Implemented new Fiberglass instance with shop floor capabilities in under four weeks