Cash Converters' IT team faced a challenge in application monitoring. They were using Azure monitoring and application log files to diagnose emerging issues, but these tools did not provide end-to-end application insight. They lacked visibility into network I/O, disk I/O, CPU, memory, application throughput, and how their application consumed system resources and behaved. When a problem arose, they couldn't be sure if it was a database issue or an application issue. They were essentially flying blind. They developed application instrumentation for lower-level insight into granular performance issues, but still lacked a system-wide view. They needed a more holistic approach to monitoring the performance of their application.

Zeleros, a startup developing an innovative hyperloop system to revolutionize ground travel, was facing challenges with its local computing capabilities. The company's local computing capabilities lacked the flexibility to accommodate the changing requirements for simulations and modeling. The on-premises computing capacity was fully occupied by a single simulation, causing significant impediments to productivity. The team was also losing a significant amount of time benchmarking to find the appropriate HPC instance for each simulation.

ARC, an innovative aerospace company that 3D prints metal rocket engines, was facing a bottleneck in their product development pipeline due to the lack of scalability in computing resources and agility in resource diversity. Their local on-premise HPC system with 50-128 cores at 80% utilization was not sufficient to run the large number of simulations required for their product development. This severely limited ARC’s simulation-throughput and design of experiments (DOE), delaying their potential time-to-market. Faced with the urgent demand for more computing resources, ARC had to decide between investing in a static on-premise HPC system or moving to a cloud-enabled HPC system.

The global automotive manufacturer was already using multiple HPC cloud services providers to power its digital engineering. However, the company wanted to further streamline its operations by moving its engineering workstations to the cloud. The challenge was to do this without incurring unnecessary costs for idle workstations. Traditional physical workstations were limited in their compute capacity and required significant time to boot up and configure. The company wanted to avoid the costs of cloud compute services when they weren't using the workstations, which was a significant portion of the total time to complete an experiment.

RWDI, a multidisciplinary engineering consulting firm, was facing a challenge due to its business growth. They had outgrown their on-premises High Performance Computing (HPC) environment and needed a solution that could handle their increasing workload. They had recently won a large wind speed mapping project across the Middle East, which required analyzing 30 years of atmospheric data across the entire region in two months. This required a million core-hours, significantly more than their on-premises system capacity. Due to the short project timeline, expanding their on-premises HPC was not feasible. Building out their own software and middleware infrastructure to be able to burst to the public cloud on their own was also not an option. They needed a turnkey hybrid cloud solution to expand their existing capacity.

Sturgis Molded Products Company (SMP), a Michigan-based injection molder, was facing challenges with its outdated, multi-system ERP software. The company serves a variety of high-demand markets, including the medical, automotive, consumer, industrial, and heavy truck industries, and needed to be meticulous in its manufacturing performance and agile in its ability to optimize plant operations. The old ERP system was not able to support the company's growth and SMP wanted to move to a true Windows-based solution and add a quality system and preventative maintenance software. The cost to retrofit the old ERP system was high and it would require multiple third-party vendors to meet the company's growing business needs. SMP needed a single-source solution that would enable it to exceed its customers’ quality and delivery expectations, while gaining operational efficiencies that would directly benefit its bottom line.

Ventura, a semi-automated assembly and production company, was facing challenges in scaling their systems to support global growth. With eight plants globally running from a single ERP instance on a server in Zeeland, Michigan, the IT team was struggling to keep up with the demands of the growing company. The system was slow, taking up to 2 hours to run reports supporting production operations, and there were concerns over the availability and disaster recovery objectives. The company needed a new system architecture that could scale more efficiently and increase the speed of system updates.

Plastic Components, Inc. (PCI) is a world-class injection molder of plastic parts. The company has established a reputation as a visionary manufacturer because it runs fully automated facilities: no direct labor is involved in their manufacturing process. However, at a little over a decade into their development, PCI’s information system was a potpourri of Excel spreadsheets, Access databases, and legal pads with pencils. They didn’t have a good handle on production scheduling, inventory, and true manufacturing costs. To address this situation, PCI conducted an assessment of a number of ERP systems, including IQMS. PCI committed to IQMS’ Manufacturing ERP, and spent nine months getting ready for implementation.

Thogus Products Company, a custom plastic injection-molder and contract manufacturer, was facing a changing business environment. The company's focus was shifting from automotive parts to a diverse product mix from various industries. This shift required improved access to and availability of critical business and production operational data, increased productivity, reduced data storage costs, and support for growth. The company's previous data system was not used properly, leading to bloated data storage costs and unreliable information. The company needed a system that would eliminate waste, simplify processes, and provide real-time insights into all manufacturing operations.

In the automotive industry, style and energy efficiency are paramount. Automakers are increasingly using energy-efficient LED lighting in designs, from taillights to instrument panels. As more products become “smart”, the underlying technologies need to adapt to new shapes and offer powerful functionality in ever-smaller packages. The challenge was to optimize LED solutions for customers in the automotive industry by making the flexible circuit technology lighter, simplifying the design, and reducing costs.

The pressure to create more fuel-efficient vehicles is mounting due to a mixture of government regulations and environmentally conscious consumers. One automaker wanted to improve its fuel efficiency by exploring an emerging trend in vehicle design—active grille shutters. These are shutters that are integrated into the vehicle’s front intake grille to alter the flow of air to the engine, promoting cooling when open and fuel-sparing aerodynamics when closed. Active grille shutters are a relatively new technique in automotive design, and they carry some challenges, particularly in safety and durability. For example, the vendor must be confident that a grille won’t get stuck in ways that would affect vehicle performance or overheat the engine.

Lawler Foods Ltd., a family-owned and operated manufacturer of gourmet cheesecakes, cakes, and pies, was previously utilizing an ERP software system they struggled with for almost a decade. The first of three main issues was the inability to use the Material Requirements Planning (MRP) functionality within the system; an improper fit left their business with individually scheduling for three plants manually which cost them nearly two days worth of labor. Secondly, the scanning aspect of their previous software was a third party add-on that they didn’t receive any support when issues arose. Finally, accounting was also operated via a third party add-on and didn’t function as “true” accounting software, therefore decreasing productivity with the accounting staff and leaving them again stranded without product support to navigate any issues.

Primrose Candy Company was previously using outdated methods of tracking business operations across multiple sources and systems. Data management was manually entered, leading to duplicate data entries and increased chances for errors. The company needed real-time financial and inventory control information that would alert them when inventory was low and what items were needed to fulfill orders. They were also facing an increasing need for quality control measures, a scheduling system that coincided within one system, and a reliable formula storage system.

Cornfields Incorporated, a leader in the private label healthy snack market, was previously only utilizing an accounting system and lacked any manufacturing operations support. In order to grow their business and stay competitive in the flourishing, all-natural and organic industry, they needed one unified system that would manage the accounting functions as well as manufacturing from raw materials to finish goods. They also desired a solution that provided lot tracking and quality control to meet increasing certification standards.

Athea Labs was operating with an outdated ERP solution that had become so specialized for their needs that updates to current releases were no longer possible. The old ERP solution lacked key functions such as MRP and MPS, which were needed to drive Inventory and Manufacturing requirements. This led Athea to develop many of their own functions outside the old ERP solution. The old ERP solution maintained Production Work Orders and routings, but without Planning. The old ERP solution did not maintain a Lot Number/Location relationship for their items and since they inventory all their chemicals and finished goods by lot number, the process of locating the First Expired, First Out (FEFO) quantity of their chemicals could sometimes end up being a long and tedious process.

Cosmaceutical, a contract manufacturer of liquids, lotions, and creams for the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industry, was facing challenges with its existing non-integrated systems. The company was using a series of Microsoft Office tools including Excel spreadsheets and custom applications written in Access. As the company grew, these systems became a limiting factor. Duplicate data entry and accuracy were becoming a problem. The systems covered all aspects of the business, but they didn't communicate with each other, leading to islands of information. One department didn't know what another department was doing. The company needed an integrated system so that anyone in the company could see what was happening with a product at any given time.

Diversified Foods and Seasonings had been using Sage PFW for many years to manage formulas, costs, and inventory within their ERP solution. However, when Sage announced their plans to retire PFW, Diversified began to review replacement ERP solutions. They evaluated nearly 15 ERP systems during their review period and selected BatchMaster Mfg. because it could fill every need they had. They were looking for a solution that was designed for formula-based food manufacturing companies and had specific functions such as Quality Control and Assurance, a Formula Approval process, and MRP/MPS integrated functionality.

Bar Bakers, a private label manufacturer of baked and cold process cookies, wafers, and nutritional bars, was experiencing exponential growth. The company needed a system that could manage the entire flow of inventory, from work order and demand to purchasing, receiving, A/P, and material consumption. They also needed a system that could provide rapid lot number traceability, crucial for their commitments to food safety and their pursuit of a BRC food safety certification. The system also needed to provide document management throughout the company for transparency and ease of access to information. As a rapidly growing company, Bar Bakers needed a system that could scale with them and support their operations.

Andy’s Seasoning, a family-owned and operated dry blend seasoning manufacturer located in St. Louis, MO, needed a solution to run its manufacturing operation. The company, which began operations in 1983 with a single product, had grown to become a nationally known firm. However, it lacked a comprehensive system to support its continued growth. The company needed a solution that could automate its processes, manage growth, and help it operate efficiently.

Radio Frequency Company, a leading manufacturer of advanced industrial radio frequency (RF) processing systems, was facing a business problem. With manufacturing jobs that could last up to six months or more, the company needed an automated solution to accurately monitor the costs and evaluate the status of these complicated and lengthy projects. They needed to quickly distinguish one-time labor costs, increase their overall planning efficiency, and provide visibility into these processes for the Project Managers and upper management. The company was also looking for a solution that could help them better evaluate bids and estimates and track the ongoing changes to engineering, resources, and services for their Engineered-to-Order (ETO) equipment that have complex product lifecycles and long lead times.

TRB, a fully owned subsidiary of Tokai Rika Japan, is a major supplier of components to leading automobile manufacturers. The company was looking for a solution to streamline its production and delivery processes. The automobile industry is characterized by precision and mass production, and customization of the end product creates innumerable permutations of the finished article. To keep the production lines rolling, and supplied with the right components at the right time, TRB needed a system that could handle the complexity of its supply chain. The company was specifically looking for a solution that incorporated Kanban, a system used for controlling the production line.

Trimm Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-performance computer storage subsystems, was looking to respond faster to customers’ needs. The company needed a leading-edge system to improve materials planning requirements and a more flexible production capability. The company was also looking for a system that could support existing and new business opportunities anywhere in the world. The company's original stock control functionality was unable to adequately forecast product or materials requirements, which invariably led to excess inventory on some component lines and inadequate stock on others.

Zeller + Gmelin Corporation, a leading international manufacturer of UV high-quality specialty printing inks for the graphics industry, had outgrown its SNAP process manufacturing software and was looking for a replacement solution that was robust, flexible and would allow a smooth changeover. In addition, Zeller + Gmelin needed a way to provide remote access from its nine branch locations to link the entire enterprise for a more efficient operation.

Kemco Manufacturing, a St. Louis-based company that produces aerospace parts for the military, embarked on a diversification project in 2004 to become a global contract manufacturer for aerospace and other manufacturers. In 2003, the majority of Kemco revenue came from Department of Defense work. However, the pendulum of the aerospace industry was moving to commercial. Seeing this as an opportunity rather than an obstacle, Kemco set out to re-brand their image in order to diversify their services and customers, and used technology to increase their competitiveness. A key factor in Kemco’s success was the implementation of JobBOSS, business management software for contract manufacturers, coupled with Amplify Technologies Partner Synchronization Services (APSS), an integrated supply chain analytics tool that integrates directly to JobBOSS.

Roncelli Plastics, a successful plastics machine shop, faced a significant decline in profitability after September 11, 2001. The company's management lacked transparency, and there was no clear understanding of revenue by sales rep or new customer profitability. By the end of 2001, the company's margins were thinning, and markets were shrinking, putting the future of the business at risk. The company's owner, Gino Roncelli, was determined to ensure the company's future and began to consider changes in the company's philosophy and operations.

PETROLTERV, a Hungarian engineering design and consulting company, was tasked with revamping the gas treatment technology at Hungary’s largest underground gas storage facility to meet new European (EN) standards. The new standards imposed more stringent hydrocarbon and water dew point requirements for natural gas handling systems than what was previously prevailing in Hungary. The site had three gas treatment trains each employing a TEG (Triethylene glycol) dehydration unit and a low temperature separation (LTS) unit which employed a propane refrigeration system and brazed aluminum heat exchangers (BAHX).

Glanbia Food Ingredients’ facility in Ireland processes about 1.4 billion liters of milk annually into butter, cheese, milk proteins, and whey derivatives. Anticipated increases in milk supply meant that the plant would not meet processing demand in the near future, so Glanbia sought ways to improve production throughput in order to meet new expectations. Management decisions were based primarily on anecdotal information. Whenever a problem arose, managers would dig through log sheets and spreadsheets and talk to operators and engineers in an effort to determine the root cause of the problem. Each area had its own way of capturing the data and calculating and presenting performance metrics, which led to inconsistent and unreliable information. This lack of credible information resulted in less-than-optimal operating decisions. Improvement opportunities went unnoticed or were never acted upon because no one could determine the root cause of the problem.

S&B Engineers and Constructors Ltd., a Houston-based EPC, has been facing challenges due to shrinking client budgets and tighter project schedules. Clients are demanding more for less, including more detailed digital handover of data to accompany traditional project deliverables. To remain competitive, S&B needed to find a solution that was faster and more tailored to the process industries than the traditional approach of producing project estimates.

SK E&C, a global EPC and Total Solution Supplier, was facing fierce competition in bidding and estimating capital construction projects. The company needed a technology and workflow process that would allow them to compete against low-labor-cost competitors. The main challenges were improving target accuracy, maintaining sufficient data for a Class IV estimate, and optimizing bids as time was spent developing the estimates rather than refining them. The company also needed to counter global threats to their business with technology that would enhance efficiency and develop bids that were more accurate, flexible, and reflective of historical cost data.

CEPSA, an integrated energy company, was looking to create a solution that would involve various business units in a coordinated way to optimize the global margin by establishing an integrated management model. Prior to the corporate initiative to improve the business processes in CEPSA, schedulers had been using homemade tools based on Excel files that were managed and reported by each individual scheduling stakeholder in a refinery. Since this method of scheduling provided no collaboration, there was little to no interaction among schedulers, causing inefficiencies and lost opportunities within CEPSA’s refineries to execute on the optimal plan. Additionally, because the spreadsheets were standalone, they provided no integration with Aspen PIMS (CEPSA’s planning solution since 2014), creating siloed departments and a disconnect between planning and operations.