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Metal Tech MFG logoMetal Tech MFG

Engineering company frees thousands of hours a year for value-added work with automated integration from OpenText™ Business Network Cloud Foundation

Metal Tech MFG logo

About Metal Tech MFG. Inc.

Metal Tech MFG delivers state-of-the-art machining services for agriculture, construction, and many other industries. Committed to excellence and innovation, the company brings projects to life with expert craftsmanship and cutting-edge technology.
A Man inspecting products in factory
  • Headquarters:
    Clinton, Iowa
  • Founded:
    1988
  • Employees:
    30

Summary

Challenges

  • Exchange thousands of EDI documents a month with customers accurately and on time.
  • Replace manual, error-prone data entry for ASNs with an automated workflow.

Solution

  • Moved EDI processing from an on-premises system to a modern cloud platform.
  • Mapped out new workflows to replace manual data processing.
  • Automated key B2B integration tasks, beginning with ASNs.

Results

  • happy-laptop Saved thousands of hours a year
  • process-data-visualization Strengthened customer relationships
  • performance-graph-stats Reduced errors with real-time insight

Challenges

  • Manual EDI data entry consumed 40 hours a week and increased the risk of human error
  • Lack of native integration between on-premises EDI and ERP platforms limited the possibilities for EDI automation
  • Faster and more accurate EDI processes promised to strengthen service levels and improve trading partner collaboration

For more than 30 years, Metal Tech MFG has served industry leaders in the agribusiness, construction, and energy sectors with precision-engineered solutions. Focused on continuous improvement, the company operates its machining processes to stringent specifications that exceed industry standards.

Jonathon Enslow, IT manager at Metal Tech MFG, said, “We manufacture components for some of the biggest brands in the agribusiness industry, which means it’s crucial for us to deliver high-quality products on time. Our electronic data interchange [EDI] capabilities play a vital role in making that happen.”

Metal Tech MFG exchanges thousands of EDI documents with its trading partners every month, including advanced shipping notices (ASNs) that provide vital information to customers.

“In the past, we relied heavily on manual work to process ASNs,” Enslow continued. “Every day, our back-office team would print out hundreds or even thousands of pages of orders from our ERP system, and re-key the data into our EDI application. In a typical week, we spent 40 hours of labor on data entry, with a full-time member of our team assigned almost exclusively to this work.”

The combined cost and risk of re-keying errors led Metal Tech MFG to look for a way to streamline its EDI workflows. The company’s ERP system did not offer native EDI integration. The cost and complexity of developing a custom extension or migrating to a new ERP solution were prohibitive.

Enslow confirmed, “Each member of our team wears a lot of different hats. If we could get rid of the repetitive, manual work associated with processing the ASNs, we knew we’d free up a significant amount of time for value-added activities. We aimed to cut the time to process the EDI workload and reduce the risk of human error. Collectively, all these factors would help the company strengthen its performance against its customers' service-level metrics.”

A manager showing a case study of a factory

OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation is reshaping our entire approach to EDI.

Jonathon Enslow
IT Manager, Metal Tech MFG

Solution

To realize its goals, Metal Tech MFG moved from an on-premises EDI system to a modern, scalable platform: OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation. By working with OpenText Professional Services, the company has automated key B2B services and processes.

Products deployed

Services deployed

Moving EDI processing the cloud

After a consultation session, the company realized that moving its EDI processing to OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation would enable it to achieve its goals without the cost and risk of an ERP migration.

“Through our discovery work with OpenText, we quickly realized that we could extract data from our existing ERP system and bring it into the new OpenText solution for processing,” Enslow recalled. “The approach that OpenText proposed enabled us to avoid the significant capital costs and potentially long timescales of deploying a new ERP system and start getting the benefits of automation and integration much more rapidly.”

Mapping out automated EDI workflows

In close collaboration with experts from OpenText Professional Services, the company mapped out the new EDI workflows. The solution extracts the data required for ASNs from the ERP solution and sends it to OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation, which creates and sends ASNs to clients. Metal Tech MFG utilizes OpenText Trading Grid™ Messaging Service, the world’s largest value-added network (VAN)—helping to ensure reliable, timely EDI services.

Metal Tech MFG also gains greater visibility of its EDI transactions. With OpenText Lens™, the company can monitor business transaction flows and gain full insight and oversight in real time via an intuitive web-based dashboard.

“OpenText Professional Services pulled out all the stops to help keep the project moving forward as planned,” said Enslow. “OpenText engaged with personnel from across our IT, purchasing, and senior leadership teams, and provided valuable guidance on B2B integration best practices. The OpenText team really came through for us—everyone we’ve worked with has been awesome. From the outset, the team demonstrated an impressive level of skill and knowledge that consistently exceeded our expectations.”

In just a single year, OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation has helped Metal Tech MFG to slash manual data entry by 40 hours a week, gain real-time visibility of EDI transactions, and achieve a full return on investment.

A women taking a notes in a factory

In the long term, we aim to automate all our EDI processes, which offers the potential to deliver annual cost-savings of over $200,000. By continuing our work with OpenText, we’re in an excellent position to achieve our B2B integration goals.

Jonathon Enslow
IT Manager, Metal Tech MFG

Results

In just a single year, OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation has helped Metal Tech MFG to slash manual data entry by 40 hours a week, gain real-time visibility of EDI transactions, and achieve a full return on investment.

Saved thousands of hours a year

Since moving its ASN processing to OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation, Metal Tech MFG has dramatically reduced the time, cost, and complexity of its EDI management.

“With automation from OpenText, we’ve freed one of our employees from 40 hours a week of manual data entry. As soon as we send order data to the OpenText platform, we have the peace of mind that our ASNs are going to be sent where they are needed,” stated Enslow. “Thanks to the time-saving, the solution delivered a full return on our investment in the first year.”

Enslow added, “For a small business like us, the time-savings we get from Business Network Cloud Foundation are even more important than the cost-savings. An employee with 20 years’ experience is now available to focus on activities ranging from training to preventive maintenance and business process optimization. It’s hard to understate how valuable it is to be able to put that experience to use in the business.”

Strengthened customer relationships

By enhancing the accuracy of its B2B communications, Metal Tech MFG is strengthening its relationship with key customers.

“Business Network Cloud Foundation is reshaping our entire approach to EDI,” commented Enslow. “If we receive a question from a customer about an ASN, we can now search for it instantly rather than trawling through paper records. The solution also enables us to detect and correct many types of errors automatically, which helps us reduce the risk of ASN errors and avoid time-consuming corrective actions.”

Reduced errors with real-time insight

Enslow continued, “Any time we have an error in an ASN after a delivery has gone out, it has the potential to impact our service-level metrics—and quality improvement is a big focus area for us. With Business Network Cloud Foundation, it’s much easier for us to ensure that the information we are sending to customers is accurate and timely.”

Building on the success of its first step into the cloud, Metal Tech MFG plans to bring more of its EDI documents into OpenText Business Network Cloud Foundation.

“Our next steps will be to automate our order entry and purchase order workflows,” concluded Enslow. “In the long term, we aim to automate all our EDI processes, which offers the potential to deliver annual cost-savings of over $200,000. By continuing our work with OpenText, we’re in an excellent position to achieve our B2B integration goals.”

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