Going ahead with IFS Applications
In January 2004, when aluminum giant Alcoa divested from Centennial, Colorado-based Stolle Machinery, Stolle’s management had to make some fast decisions about its enterprise application platform. Stolle Machinery designs, manufactures, and distributes equipment for the metal container industry. This equipment is used by packaging giants like Rexam and Ball, and these Stolle customers supply beverage companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi as well as companies that can major food products, including SPAM®. Prior to the divestiture, Stolle was preparing to implement business applications from Oracle. “Alcoa was going in the direction of Oracle,” Stolle Machinery ERP Project Manager Michael Kalkman said. “When Alcoa decided to divest itself and we were purchased by American Industrial Partners, our management team started another selection process, and we wound up choosing IFS Applications.” But the divestiture was only the first in a series of changes that Stolle’s IT system would have to accommodate. Stolle began implementing IFS’ supply chain management, financial, and workforce management applications in April 2004 and went live on the financials package in June of that year. But in November 2004, Stolle acquired one additional company, and the implementation had to be recalibrated to accommodate the new division. The focus was no longer on simply replacing an outmoded system, but on using a standard ERP to unite three systems. “The old system we came off of was not as integrated as IFS Applications,” Kalkman said. “There were data integrity issues that Accounting had to reconcile at the end of each month, and it was difficult to do any type of statistical analysis. But then all of a sudden we had five different divisions that we needed to bring under one company. Instead of acting like five $40 million companies, we wanted to start acting like a single $200 million company. Instead of treating our customers and supplier bases in different ways, we wanted to present that united front and adopt the same processes.” Stolle Machinery took a break in the implementation process to reassess its plans, and decided not only to more aggressively integrate the different divisions in its enterprise solution but also to upgrade to a more current version of IFS Applications. “In March 2005, we started implementing the remaining modules and upgrading to IFS Applications 2004,” Kalkman said. “We originally went live on IFS Applications 2003 when we were three companies within the IFS system. But in IFS Applications 2004, we implemented as one company with multiple division sites, maintaining the integrity of our transactions behind the scenes.” By July 2005, the implementation was completed in all of Stolle’s Colorado facilities. By March 2006, all of Stolle’s Ohio divisions were live on IFS Applications, bringing the total number of users to 240. |
