How A-dec increased productivity with Microsoft ERP solutions

By Microsoft in Business Team

June 7, 2017

Focus on: Optimize Operations, Empower Employees, Engage Customers

From dental lights to chairs, to high tech consoles – chances are you’re already familiar with A-dec’s products. Trusted by dentists for over 50 years A-dec specializes in the design, manufacture, and sale of products such as dental chairs, stools, delivery systems, dental lighting, cabinetry, and other accessories to dental offices across the globe.

As a leader in the dental equipment space, A-dec’s goal is to provide new innovative products, easy ordering and unparalleled customer service to dentists and distribution partners.

Recently, however, A-dec experienced trouble with its 17-year-old ERP solution.
The aging software proved to be a challenge, resulting in security and scalability as major concerns in terms of customer experience and business expansion. Inconsistent data across divisions also hindered the growth of the business.

In order to reinvent its processes, the A-dec team turned to a Microsoft ERP solution that would ensure mobility, productivity, and integration of up-to-date data. The reinvention would result in an enhanced customer experience and a unified organization.

This is a real story of digital transformation.

A-dec leaders recognize opportunity to evolve“From a technology perspective, we were flat on a legacy [solution] system and it absolutely needed to be upgraded,” says Director of Information Services Yolanda Green.

As the world’s leading manufacturer of dental chairs, delivery systems, and dental lights, the A-dec team knew that it was time to find a better solution. The current solution, which was no longer supported by a service provider, raised security concerns for customers and couldn’t scale to meet A-dec’s global expansion. Additionally, a limited customer experience hindered any sense of customization and personalization for interactions.

“The challenges A-dec has faced relates to competition throughout the world of dental equipment,” says Director of Manufacturing Dave Morgan. “But it also relates to the changing face of dentistry where a lot of technological changes have taken place.”

The disparate systems between front-end interactions and back-end execution also harmed the company with inconsistent data being spread across divisions. A-dec recognized that the ERP system would need replacing sooner rather than later. But, they had to be cautious in their approach to implementing a new solution.

“We understood that this journey was more like turning a luxury cruise line rather than turning a jet ski,” explains Green. “In other words, our strategy was to start early enough so that we could get the replacement in place as long as the existing system was still operable.”

Since there was still time with the old solution, the organization decided to take a holistic and collaborative look at the available alternatives. They wanted a program that would satisfy the needs of all departments, including customer service, sales, and manufacturing. After settling on Microsoft Dynamics’ ERP solution, A-dec was able to completely reinvigorate scalability, efficiency, and streamlined data.

Integration brings enhanced experience“We wanted our customers to be able to see a visual representation of our product as they were putting a proposal together and configuring it,” says Green. “We also wanted our customers to be able to get online and be able to submit and change orders. Internally we also had a need to really get our house in order from the perspective of consistent information.”

Because cloud technology enhances global scalability, A-dec employees can access ERP from anywhere in the world. Additionally, the integration meant that new solutions can be quickly augmented for the ever-evolving sales strategies of the company.

By integrating the front-end with Dynamics, A-dec allows customers to experience visually compelling services, which leads to completely customized product offerings. This product configurator was a major competitive game-changer for the A-dec team as no one in the field had anything close to those capabilities. The front-end solution also integrates into the back-end ERP for smarter SKU selection, easier ordering and shipping, efficient managing of inventory, and enhanced, consistent data applications.

With a centralized front- and back-end ERP, A-dec could amplify their service offerings to record levels. Within the first week after the implementation, the company entered 1,974 sales orders, 2,775 production jobs completed, 1,624 shipments, and 1,568 invoiced transactions into the Dynamics system.

“On day one we were taking an order, building an order, and shipping an order,” says Sales Lead of Online Ordering, Jason Hopson. “Then, in just ten short months, we also had the most volume shipped out of our shipping department in A-dec’s history.”

Transforming dentistry“On the customer side, they can now order products much easier and they can see the product as they’re building it in the configurator, so I think that improves the quality of the product they select,” says Morgan. “On the ERP side, we’re able to dive deep into a problem and export and analyze information, which we could not do in our old system.”

A-dec is now heavily reliant on its Dynamics ERP solution and looking forward to continuing to evolve its business with the solution in place.

When asked to give advice to other organizations looking to digitally transform, the Chief Operating Officer, Marv Nelson, chimed in and addressed teamwork as a main priority. “You need commitment from the top of your organization,” says Nelson. “We had that all along, from our owners, our CEO, to our executive team. Everyone has to buy into the transformation.”