Success Stories

Like most distributors, Steve Turner, general manager of Great Lakes Fasteners & Supply, has to find a constant balance between ever-tightening margins and increasing customer demands. And despite being relatively inexpensive items, fasteners have a tendency to gather costs on their way to a customer, whether in handling, shipping, or secondary processes.

"It is difficult to pass on non value added processing costs forward and remain competitive in this tight market", remarks Turner, "so we are challenged each day with becoming more efficient in our transaction costs, and understand that productivity increases are essential to stability and growth."

In the past, when the executives at Great Lakes wanted to increase productivity, they would just add manpower, but that policy changed when they decided to implement Activant® Prophet 21® and its optional Wireless Warehouse Management Solution (WWMS).

"As our business grows and evolves, customers will continue to demand more service for the product we're selling, and we don't want to add staff to handle that," explains Turner. "By streamlining operations, Prophet 21 takes some of that pressure off of us and helps increase productivity."

The Next Level

A full-line distributor that specializes in OEM production fasteners, Great Lakes Fasteners & Supply's three locations have been serving customers throughout the United States and overseas and growing steadily since 1946. For 22 years, employees at the company depended on Activant® Faspac as their business system, but according to Turner, they needed a solution that could take them to the next level.

"For more than two decades, Faspac did the job we needed it to do," says Turner, "but we got to a point where we simply outgrew its capabilities. We needed a system that could do more in the way of purchasing and warehousing and Prophet 21 was the answer."

The executives at Great Lakes decided in 2005 to implement Prophet 21.

Improved Productivity

"Since going live on Prophet 21, we have seen a 21 percent increase in productivity during our picking process using the Wireless Warehouse Management Solution," says Turner. "It is so simple to use that just about anyone can be up and running with a high degree of accuracy in just a few hours."

In addition to improvements in the warehouse, Turner reports advancements in the area of purchasing. "We have been able to significantly reduce our on-hand inventory," reports Turner. "That not only helps with cash flow, but requires us to use less warehouse space. We've actually rented out some of our free space, leading to unexpected revenue."

The Activant Advantage

"The people at Activant really know distribution," states Turner. "I like that they try to stay ahead of the curve and invite customers to advise them on new and developing products."

Turner sees yet another advantage to working with Activant: "Every year, Great Lakes sends several employees to Activant Summit, the annual conference for Activant customers. We learn things in the educational sessions that we can implement immediately upon returning. Often, what we learn pays for the cost of sending our employees."

For more information on Activant's enterprise software solutions, please fill out our Web Contact Form.

Back to Top