Dorin Răducan about results after Ascent ERP implementation.

Dorin Răducan, business development managerul Grosvenor Supply Chain Management:

Implementing Ascent ERP and WMS at Grosvenor SCM has led to five major business indicator improvements.

Grosvenor Supply Chain Management deals with supply chain management and the distribution of consumables and equipment for the electronic industry, both for EMS (Electronic Manufacturing Service Providers) and OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturing).

Dorin Răducan, Grosvenor SCM business development manager, explained to us that the decision to implement an integrated ERP + WMS computer solution, taken in 2010, was intrinsically motivated by the business development.

Basically, the business had grown to the critical stage where, once exceeding a certain turnover, the separate solutions used until then for each aspect of the activity no longer kept up with the requests to provide supporting information for substantiating managerial decisions.

„We felt that we were lacking visibility on stocks, we could not forecast the supply needs correlated with the dynamics of stocks and we did not have access to up-to-date reports on consumption. We worked empirically, and the volume of business carried out required an integrated solution that would be stable, provide us with constant, prompt and agile support and be versatile enough to exactly meet our expectations and the dynamic evolution of the company.

We held detailed discussions with three IT solutions providers. I chose the solution proposed by Ascent Soft due to a good human-to-human chemistry that I immediately felt in the personal and business relationship and the promised technical support that they offered us and which are taking care of it even now.

The quality technical presentation convinced us of the qualities of the software platform developed by Ascent Soft, and the quick response time to our urgent problems delighted us.

The Ascent Soft managers were contagious of exuberant when they presented their solution and convinced us also easily by their enthusiasm for the program and the technical platform on which it was developed; to see that he is their ‘child’ of soul.

It has mattered to us that Ascent Soft is really the manufacturer of this software because it thus has a precise vision on the functionalities and characteristics of the software, knows exactly what it can do and what its limitations are.

Therefore, the implementation was fast, with an even slightly earlier deadline compared to the deadline promised by the contract, and the adjustment of the program to our needs was smooth.

The program is intuitive and flexible, the main functions seemed easy to understand, and with the training made by Ascent Soft experts right at our place of work, all 12 users were able to work effectively in the new program in just a few weeks.

Following the analysis, they understood what we wanted and came up with some solutions that were better than the ones we initially thought. For example, for a fair and real analysis of the situation, we were suggested to design the order board based on the ID assigned to each item and then take into account all orders received from all our customers for that one. item, correlated with the stocks, with the orders issued to the suppliers, with the merchandise being in supply and with the delivery times.

Also, the ticket-based technical support ensures a good follow-up of the conversations carried out, and the fact that the program is installed in the mirror on both our server and the Ascent Soft server allows for flexibility and promptness of the interventions.

We benefit from a dedicated, totally personalized and customized program for our needs.

Custom software developments – specially designed for our needs from 2010 to the present – make us affirm that today we have a dedicated, fully customized program for Grosvenor. In 2019 the major upgrade to the new Ascent ERP V3 platform – changed the operational and analytical paradigm, helping us to support the new level of development to which the Gosvenor group has evolved in the last 4 years – the level of regional player in Central-Eastern Europe on the distribution of consumables and equipment for the electronics and automotive industry. In an implementation as agile as the first generation, Grosvenor SCM benefits from the use of Ascent V3 ERP in subsidiaries in Serbia, Macedonia, Austria and Ukraine, the benefits of using a common platform being the integration of business flows with the subsidiaries, the total number of active users being 30. 

Ascent Soft has developed for us a set of dynamic sales reports, pivot reports, supply order dashboards and customer orders, stock movement reports and forecast supply reports.

The management of the documents is separated for each operation separately and according to the type of invoice (coming from a certain custody, from an opinion, from an external invoice with export or intra-Community).

Also, another computer development made allows us to modify the documents to promptly correct operator errors and thus avoid further corrections in accounting and statements.

All the development requirements came from the practice and help us to closely monitor the frequency of supply, the statistics on the product groups used by each customer, the invoices in the balance and the situation of payments per customers.

Ascent ERP and Ascent WMS have brought us a number of benefits and concrete improvements:

1. 1. We have optimized our storage space by 40%. In the absence of a Warehouse Management System solution, we could not put different products in the same location as form or from different product groups. Instead, now we no longer physically look for a particular product, but take it by scanning, directly from the scanner, which knows how to differentiate between products.

1. 1. We increased the accuracy of deliveries by 60% by eliminating human errors regarding the type of products delivered to customers. The products delivered are now exactly the ones ordered by customers. We are developing, together with Ascent Soft, an action plan to eliminate human errors related to the counting of the delivered products, through an investment in software, equipment and labels to automate this counting process

1. 1. The processing times of an order have been halved   because our operators no longer search for the goods in the warehouse. The scanner tells them with an accuracy of 95% in which sector of 2.7 meters wide by 1 meter high is the stock required for delivery. Thus our operators no longer grumble after products throughout the warehouse, but go directly to the location.

1. 1. The complaints received from the customers were reduced by 90% because, the human errors for delivery of products that were not actually ordered, no longer appear. We will further optimize this indicator with the implementation of the automation of the process of counting the delivered products.

1. It also halved the time required for periodic inventory, which we do twice a year. Before that there was a manual, scripted inventory on all locations in the warehouse. Now we scan each product, manually enter only the number of pieces and then scan the location where it is for restoring the product to that location. Basically, to a large extent, scriptural inventory is overlapping today over factual inventory due to reduced delivery and registration errors in management.“