BTD Manufacturing began in 1979 as Bismark Tool and Die in Bismark, ND. One year later, they moved to Detroit Lakes, MN for additional space and a more convenient primary location. In 1991, Bismark Tool and Die merged with MN Kota Stamping, Inc. to form BTD Manufacturing, Inc. BTD now has three divisions that operate four manufacturing plants and one distribution plant across Minnesota and Illinois. BTD boasts a wide range of contract and custom manufacturing capabilities, including assembly, finishing, tooling, stamping, fabrication, tubing, welding, and machining. In order to manage the inventory required for these projects, BTD has implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX and RF-SMART.
The Need for Automated Data Collection
BTD implemented Microsoft Dynamics AX as their ERP system. They were pleased with the Dynamics AX functionality, but also needed an Automated Data Collection (ADC) solution to transfer their transaction data into their ERP in real time. Due to slow AX form load times, employees would often leave AX forms open and forget to post their journals, leading to inventory data inaccuracies. Therefore, inventory verifications were being run on a monthly basis, costing BTD nearly $10,000 in labor and lost productivity.
“The pain of not having real time transactions to update inventory was costly and made the ROI of an ADC implementation look amazing,” said IT Manager at BTD, Trevor Johnson.
BTD attended Microsoft’s Convergence Tradeshow with the intention of finding an ADC solution to meet their needs. BTD visited the RF-SMART booth at Convergence and shortly thereafter invited RF-SMART to do an on-site demonstration for their production and warehouse leadership group. Through the demonstration, BTD was able to verify that RF-SMART did what it said it would and met their specific business needs. “From there, it was all about how quickly we could get the product installed, tested and deployed,” said Trevor.
ADC Goals Realized
BTD began implementation of RF-SMART, and they were fully live within three weeks. Upon implementation, business efficiency grew substantially. Using RF-SMART, each BTD transaction is now processed with scanned entry and takes one third of the time to complete. Considering BTD processes anywhere from 750 to 1,000 transactions a day, the time savings are significant.
In addition to this primary benefit, RF-SMART also auto-posts inventory updates into AX tables in real time. This functionality has reduced BTD’s inventory errors by over 60%. BTD now has access to accurate, real-time inventory statuses and locations. With new confidence in their data, BTD was able to reduce inventory counts by 50%, while still improving accuracy.