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JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Cognos
Business Intelligence Form the Right Chemistry at DOBER GROUP
Company Overview
Dober Group is a specialty chemical and water
treatment company, which focuses in four primary
market segments. These include Industrial Laundry,
Industrial Wastewater Treatment, Fluid Management,
and Pharmaceutical segments. In the market segments
Dober pursues, they lead in
providing innovative solutions to customer problems.
In Dober's largest market segment, Industrial
Laundry, they provide the number one liquid feed
system in the market and are leaders in providing
both cleaning and wastewater treatment solutions.
Dober has three manufacturing and distribution sites
in Illinois, one in Pennsylvania, and works with six
contract manufacturers. A team of Technical Service
Network representatives located throughout the
country services the Dober customer base.
Challenges Faced
In the years leading up to 2001, Dober had grown
from an entrepreneurial firm to a professional
business and needed a tier one best practices
software product to support the enterprise. Dober
was running on a rudimentary Enterprise Resource
Planning (ERP) system with limited
functionality. For example, this system was unable
to handle multiple locations, manufacturing costing,
bill-to vs. ship-to, and multiple inventory
locations. The financials were cumbersome and the
chart of accounts was four times larger than it
eventually became when the software was replaced. It
was very difficult to get information out of the
system, partly due to the fact that key information
couldn’t be captured up front. A critical goal for
Dober was to achieve an integrated system capable of
introducing best practices and producing customer
contribution reports. The end users were
complaining!
The Solution
After a successful grass roots effort to secure a
new system, the Dober team chose
JD Edwards
EnterpriseOne. JD Edwards had the best business practices,
clearly superior customer service and financials,
and the manufacturing features needed to meet the
business requirements. The products selected
included Financials, Distribution and
Manufacturing. Dober also purchased the
Cognos Business
Intelligence products and Analytical Applications
for reporting. Changing the organization to adapt to
this solution would become the largest inhibitor to
success. The ERP project began in February of 2002
and went live in November of 2002. With leadership
from Dober’s V.P. of Operations, Scott Dobrez and
CD
Group’s Client Manager, Mike Prust, and an
independent consultant, the project has been deemed
a 100% success!
“a key contribution by the CD Group project
team was that they controlled scope and
continued to question and challenge the
temptation to modify the software to meet a
perceived user requirement. The training was
great. The methodology was great. Each step
built upon the previous.”
Scott Dobrez,
V.P. of Operations
The Business Intelligence project took place in a
later phase and included Sales, General Ledger,
Purchasing, Inventory and Accounts Receivable. As of
this date, Sales, General Ledger and Purchasing
provide managers information without having to go
through IT or accounting. These managers have the
information necessary to provide appropriate input
to the budgeting process.
Benefits Realized
As expected, the benefits
achieved are numerous.
-
Executive Management can
generate the Contribution Management report.
-
Managers in the field can
make smarter decisions about customers.
-
The chart of accounts is
reduced by one fourth and provides more
flexibility.
-
Growth is achievable without
a proportional growth in personnel.
-
Dober can successfully manage
its business via an understanding of its
profitability model.
According to Scott Dobrez, Dober
could operate this solution easily for another five
to ten years.
Overall, through its partnership
with CD Group, Dober Chemical achieved the goal of
implementing a fully integrated business software
solution and instilling solid business practices
throughout the organization.
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