Case Study - Cincinnati Sub-Zero
The Business Challenge
VE Mobile Case Study with Infor VISUAL ERP - Cincinnati Sub-Zero logo
Cincinnati Sub-Zero (CSZ) is a leading provider of temperature management equipment for over 70 years. CSZ serves medical and industrial industries with high-quality temperature management products and services worldwide. CSZs Industrial Division has very complex bills of materials with thousands of individual parts. Most jobs are pulled in bulk from the warehouse shelves and delivered to workstations on carts. Additional parts are requested on a regular basis at the Industrial parts counter in the warehouse.
Competitive pricing of products has CSZ managers constantly looking for solutions to reduce overhead costs. On average, CSZ processes 5,500 transactions a month through the Industrial parts counter. Employees walk up to the parts counter expecting an immediate issue of parts for a particular job. The material handlers kept a paper log of all parts pulled to meet these immediate needs. At a later date, all entries on the paper logs were manually keyed into the computer system. These paper logs could easily be 18 pages behind, waiting for data entry of each transaction. This delay resulted in inaccurate on hand balances on a regular basis. As our business increased, it became necessary for material handlers to work overtime on Saturdays just to key in the transactions.
Their biggest business needs were:
- Reduce paperwork
- Eliminate lag time between actual inventory adjustments and computer entry
- Increase efficiencies and accuracy
- Lower costs associated with inventory transactions.
The VE Mobile Implementation
Cincinnati Sub-Zero was exposed to VE Mobile at a local VISUAL user group demo. However, at that time, the VE Mobile solution did not do everything we needed. After several discussions, we determined what current modules we needed and what additional functionality SaberLogic needed to develop. We then held weekly meetings to review the development progress, providing video demos to show them the current state of development and get their feedback.
When SaberLogic completed initial development, we performed a beta installation on a test server at their physical location. All of the hardware and scanning guns were pointed to the test server so they could test VE Mobile on their shop floor. After getting feedback and making some minor adjustments, we released a final version and installed it on their live VISUAL system.
The Results
With the implementation of VE Mobile, CSZ has been able to:
- Eliminate the paper log of transactions
- Eliminate the lag time between actual inventory adjustments and computer entry
- Increase efficiencies (saving 76.66 man hours a month)
- Increase accuracy (retrieving part information on jobs, warning messages)
- Lower cost associated with inventory transactions, which…
- went from 57 seconds to 7 seconds per transaction, saving 76.66 man hours/month
- went from $0.24 to $0.02 per transaction, saving $1,168.25/month
Supporting Data
Average Monthly Transactions: 5,520
- Processing by hand took approximately 57 seconds/transaction, at $0.24/transaction to process
- Processing with VEMobile takes approximately 7 seconds/transaction, at $0.02/transaction to process
Time Saving / Transaction in Seconds 50 Seconds
Time Saving / Month in Hours 76.66 man hours
Cost Savings/Transaction $0.21
- Old Way / Month $1,297.15
- New Way / Month $128.79
Cost Savings / Month $1,168.35
Cost Savings / Year $14,020.24
Cost to Implement $20,000 - $30,000
- Hand Held Motorola MC9090s (5 - refurbished)
- VEMobile Licenses (5)
- VEMobile Maintenance (Annually)
Return on Investment Time in Years: 1.68
Return on Investment Time in Months: 20.19
Annual Savings $10,520.24
(after Initial Investment Return and Subtracting Annual Maintenance Costs)
