E-ONE Profile in Success
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E-ONE, a manufacturer of fire trucks, implemented Cincom's product configuration software to improve order accuracy and reduce costs. The complex, customizable nature of fire trucks led to issues with quotes, orders, and manufacturing. Cincom's solution captured product knowledge, allowed highly customized orders in minutes, and improved forecasting, costs, and times. This helped E-ONE become profitable again and better serve customers and dealers with faster, more accurate ordering.
E-ONE Profile in Success
- 1. Goals: • Improve the accuracy of orders to build complex, customized fire trucks • Eliminate waste from manufacturing system Profile in Success: E-ONE • Reduce the cost of maintaining the system • Make it easier for customers to order highly customized trucks Challenges: Cincom Improves Efficiency at • Little buy-in among departments • Too much time between order E-ONE receipt and order release • Customer difficulty in accurately Fire apparatus manufacturer’s complex product configuring order for highly customized trucks offering supported by Cincom product configurator Solution: Cincom Acquire® Key Results: • Improved forecasting: Visibility at the time of quote rather than at the time of the order • Reduced manufacturing costs • Up to a 51% reduction in lead times • Improved purchasing: less need to expedite parts • Reduced inventory and improved inventory turns • Faster response to market demands • Improved dealer effectiveness • Seamless integration with legacy systems • Greater dealer and customer satisfaction • Order processing time reduced by 41% Bob Wormser thought he was retired in 1974. He’d sold his aluminum playset manufacturing company and settled down to live the easy life. But one day, Wormser passed an old fire truck rusting away in a field and thought that if someone made a fire truck out of aluminum, it wouldn’t rust. Being an engineer, he went home and built an aluminum fire truck and took it to a trade show. Within a decade, his new company, E-ONE, became the largest manufacturer of fire rescue vehicles in the United States. Today, E-ONE has more than 23,000 vehicles in operation around the world. They are the industry leader in product innovations, new technologies and exceeding customer expectations—all of which begin with their EzDRAW, EzONE, EzWRITER and EzONE2go product configurators, based on Cincom Acquire.
- 2. Complex, Customizable Products Cincom’s Solution The need for such versatile product configurators was In 2005, E-ONE began implementation of its EzONE born out of the company’s increasingly complex product product configurator, based on Cincom Acquire. By the offerings; E-ONE’s emergency vehicles can have up to end of 2007, all E-ONE products were released into 14,000 customizable features. EzONE, resulting in a marked improvement. Now, instead of an error-prone process that took days, customers can “Every single one of our products is different,” says Peter order highly customized fire rescue vehicles in minutes. Guile, CEO of E-ONE. “Every fire department decides what its needs are and has specific views on how its truck should be configured. This builds a tremendous amount of Capturing Tribal Knowledge complexity into our job.” “Cincom’s technology allows us to capture the knowledge of the product as we build it,” says Larry Schenavar, E- “In the past,” adds Jonathan Plant, E-ONE’s configuration ONE’s IT director. “Our prior configuration product relied manager, “we would have to pore over each order line by a lot on tribal knowledge, which meant our dealers had to line to confirm that all of the components were not just be very good fire truck designers. Using the Cincom okay by themselves, but also okay in combination.” solution, we capture the knowledge in the product and As a result, E-ONE was challenged with producing that allows us to push that knowledge into the dealers’ accurate quotes and orders requiring significant amounts hands, so they don’t necessarily need to know every single of resources and cost. Orders were accepted without a thing about a fire truck in order to configure it.” clear understanding of the details, and products were being built with incomplete information. E-ONE did not Shortening the Sales Process have structured processes for product definition and the Using EzONE, a dealer can now create a new quote and release of new features. Dealers could “write in” their have it available to present to his customer in under 20 interpretation of an order, including instructions to the minutes—a vast improvement, according to Jonathan Plant. shop floor. This technique made systemic bill of materials “In the past, that was a pretty long and arduous process (BOM) determinations next to impossible. that would require possibly days of phone calls back and forth between sales and dealer support,” Plant says. “Now In an effort to correct these issues, E-ONE replaced its we’ve put it all in one place. If a dealer does need manual process with a vended solution. When the vendor support, that’s available in EzONE, as well. The Cincom stopped supporting that solution, E-ONE tried to grow its technology has really enabled us to consolidate the own product-configuration solution using in-house process and shorten the turnaround time for orders.” resources. They struggled to provide dealers with the tools needed to supply customers with detailed custom Plant and E-ONE product manager, Joe Hedges, worked specifications. together to load the product configurator with the rules and options needed to build E-ONE’s fire engines. “The industry overall makes an eight to 10 percent return on sales, and E-ONE was not profitable,” Guile says. An exhaustive search for a solution led E-ONE to Cincom. Developing Highly Customized Quotes “Our mission to do things more efficiently and take waste “With the Cincom technology,” Hedges says, “we were out of our system led us to become heavily engaged with able to develop a quoting tool that we could populate Cincom for our sales process product configurator.” with thousands of options and hundreds of rules, allowing the dealer to develop a highly customized quote for a wide variety of products we offer.” “The Cincom technology has really enabled Plant adds, “The Cincom technology that we use is an us to shorten the turnaround time for advanced application. There are complex rule structures and lots of information that has to be maintained and run orders.” in a timely manner.” However, the way that the application – Jonathan Plant, Configuration Manager, E-ONE is put together makes it easy for non-technical users to learn and get the end result that they need. “The Cincom technology has made all of that much easier for us.” CEO Guile takes a broader view. “The Cincom team helped us deliver what appears to be a sales tool, but really starts with product management,” he says. “Which options we offer and how those options stack up all ties into driving our operation—capturing the engineering requirements and delivering them through a sales tool order enables us to be organized and manufacture trucks efficiently.”
- 3. Working with Cincom problem. We were able to feed our ERP system, our reporting system and our financial systems. It all meshed Cincom’s professionals worked closely with E-ONE’s team seamlessly, and again, the Cincom team was wonderful in in the creation of EzONE. Beginning with the product helping us figure out those touch points.” definition stage, Cincom helped guide the project to successful completion. After the implementation was completed and EzONE was live, it was the Cincom Support team’s turn to shine. “In the rare occasion that we do have an issue, they’re right Defining the Product there,” Plant says. “They’re always available by phone or “The critical linchpin to product development is product email, they always get back to us and they stay on top of definition,” Schenavar says. “The product needs to be set the issue like it was their own.” up with a good foundation of product definition in order to make it successful. The Cincom team helped us with that.” Schenavar says that Cincom advisor Rusty Halm was Making E-ONE Successful instrumental in helping the E-ONE team design and define their knowledge environment. “A lot of the things he told The benefits of implementing Cincom’s technology have us to do—making smaller constraints and things like that— been extremely noticeable. For one thing, it greatly we didn’t take his advice. We ended up having to go back contributed to order processing and manufacturing and do some of the things he had suggested we do.” efficiency. Design Advice Likewise, Cincom product director Jim Wilson gave Schenavar much valuable advice about the design of EzONE. “Jim has a very good knowledge of product definition, design and how to design for configurability. The Cincom team really has their finger on the pulse of the customer.” “The Cincom team really has their finger on the pulse of the customer.” – Larry Schenavar, IT Director, E-ONE “E-ONE had been struggling with profitability for quite a while,” Peter Guile explains. “When we bought the company in 2008 from the original public company owner, Plant agrees. “One of the great things about the Cincom we really looked at why we weren't making money. The technology is that there are so many paths you can move Cincom team got involved with us and their guidance and through to reach your end goal,” he says. “So we had to technology helped us build the EzONE sales configurator determine what the correct path was for us, and the that makes sure we're not accepting contracts for things Cincom team really made that a much easier experience. that we can't build. We don't accept huge engineering They came in, analyzed our needs, and really became a projects without realizing what we're taking onboard and part of our team in helping us to figure out the right path.” pricing accordingly. Six months after we bought the company, we became profitable, so with the drive behind using our configurator tool, help from the Cincom team, Laying the Groundwork combined with our internal efforts, it's been a magic Plant says that product configuration management was a formula.” new concept to E-ONE, and Cincom helped them lay the groundwork for the EzONE solution. “Many of the aspects that the Cincom team helped us with still hold true today,” Turning the Company Around says Plant. “They were instrumental in helping us get to Larry Schenavar ticks off the ways Cincom’s solution where we are—not just in the beginning, but on an helped turn the company around. “Using the Cincom ongoing basis.” technology, we time our release of the product with the release of the configuration for that product, so our dealers can order them when they’re available, immediately. Easy Integration Using the Cincom technology, we can rapidly see what’s out Cincom’s professionals even made the integration of the there and react to the changes that needed to be made. new system into the legacy software easy. “Every company Using the Cincom technology allows us to capture the has a suite of software that they use, and leveraging in or knowledge of the product as we build it and push that shoehorning in another suite of software can be difficult,” knowledge into the dealers’ hands. Using the Cincom Plant says. “With the Cincom technology, that wasn’t a technology has allowed us to improve the timeliness of bid reviews and the accuracy of orders as they come in.”
- 4. “The amount of information he could get, Jonathan Plant agrees. “One of the core features of the Cincom technology,” he says, “is the rules-based engine. the amount of configurations that he could It allows us to be more confident in knowing that what design and develop quickly and the amount we’re offering to our dealers and our customers is of illustrations and drawings he could absolutely a great product which can be built as specified. It adds another layer of protection for us and for our provide to the customer in a short amount of customers, knowing that the rules will be accurate and time really blew him away. He saw it as a what we’ll end up with is a buildable configuration.” competitive advantage in his market.” Cincom’s solution also allows E-ONE to make rapid – Larry Schenavar, IT Director, E-ONE changes to its sales offerings. Plant says changes can be pushed out to the sales channel in just a few minutes. “So we know that we constantly have the most current Recruiting New Dealers information for our dealers, and that’s a positive thing for Schenavar says that E-ONE uses EzONE as a selling tool sales.” and a recruitment tool for new dealers. “It’s a very “Being able to leverage the Cincom technology has put powerful tool that allows the dealer to get information out us in a strategically well-placed position,” Plant says. of E-ONE without phone calls. They can get detailed specifications on customized products that they’re developing for customers.” E-ONE recently recruited a new dealer from a competitor, “Being able to leverage the Cincom and on his first visit to the company, they gave him a technology has put us in a strategically detailed review of the EzONE quote-to-order application. well-placed position.” “He was blown away,” Schenavar says. “The amount of information he could get, the amount of configurations – Jonathan Plant, Configuration Manager, E-ONE that he could design and develop quickly and the amount of illustrations and drawings he could provide to the customer in a short amount of time really blew him away. The Future He saw it as a competitive advantage in his market.” So would E-ONE work with Cincom again on future “Without the Cincom technology,” Schenavar says, projects? Actually, they already are. “frankly, we wouldn’t be able to manage the front-end business the way we do today. It enables our channel to “Recently, we’ve been talking to the Cincom team about sell our trucks, to get information to the customers and to what our next steps are,” says Plant. “We’ve got a lot of get the orders in the door.” good ideas of where we can take this. We’re definitely not capped out.” In 2007, E-ONE launched EzONE2go, a configuration tool that allows dealers and sales reps to design a truck without Internet access. Now, Plant says, they are looking to develop other versions of the configurator. “There will be more EzONEs to come. And like I said, the Cincom, the Quadrant Logo and Cincom Acquire are registered trademarks of Cincom team is always there, always available to help us Cincom Systems, Inc. determine the correct path. We consider it an ongoing © 2010 Cincom Systems, Inc. project.” FORM CMUS0903119 09/10 Printed in U.S.A. All Rights Reserved About Cincom World Headquarters • Cincinnati, OH USA Founded in 1968, Cincom is a financially strong and stable US 1-800-2CINCOM (1-800-224-6266) • International 1-513-612-2769 company. For over 40 years, Cincom has empowered Fax 1-513-612-2000 • E-mail info@cincom.com • http://www.cincom.com partners and thousands of clients worldwide to outperform their competition by providing ways to increase their revenue, control cost, minimize risk and achieve rapid ROI. Over 800 professionals support thousands of customers worldwide. The solutions Cincom Acquire provides for each client are specialized for simplicity, ease of use and flexibility.