Software Selection & Implementation
Company Profile:
Integrity Building Systems (IBS), Inc. is a modular home construction business that builds moderate to high-end, customized modular homes. They pride themselves on being the best in quality, value and service in their market area, which runs from Maine to Virginia and from New Jersey to Western Pennsylvania. Incorporated in May 1999, IBS is privately owned and operated by an experienced management team with more than 135 years combined experience in the manufactured housing industry.
Situation:
The business software that the company was using was being discontinued, which meant they would not be able to update it to meet future needs. They needed to replace it with a new software package and asked the IMC for assistance.
Solution:
Phase 1 included identifying the company’s needs and software candidates.
The IMC project manager:
- Assisted the company in completing a computer-based questionnaire that defined the company’s requirements for a manufacturing software system.
- Used the questionnaire to perform a comparative requirement analysis against a group of different manufacturing software systems.
- Presented and discussed summary reports of the company’s needs and corresponding candidates’ systems.
- Worked with the company in ranking and selecting software system demos and assisting the company in preparing requests to the selected software vendors.
Phase 2 include software demonstrations. The IMC project manager:
- Participated along with the company in the interview and demo of the software system.
- Advised the company on questions and answers between the company and software system provider.
- IMC then worked with the company to choose a new software package. They chose a Timberline Office Package that met their Accounting and Estimating needs. Engle Business Systems installed the various modules and trained the appropriate personnel in the new software.
Results:
The Company is experiencing more efficient and productive business operations with their new accounting system and is looking forward to full implementation of the estimating module during the first quarter 2005.
“The IMC did an excellent job of determining our needs and narrowing down our choices from the software packages that were available. The Timberline software is a good fit for our company. It has met our short-term accounting needs and we are looking to implement the Estimating functions of the software in the second quarter of 2005. Once this implementation is complete, it will eliminate a substantial amount of redundancy in our current workflow and help eliminate costing and purchasing errors.”
Glenn Salsman, Controller