Strahl & Pitsch Automates Manual Processes
to Reduce Cost and Increase Productivity

Company Profile

Founded in 1904, Strahl & Pitsch is a Long Island-based company specializing in importing, refining, and custom blending the world’s finest natural waxes -- such as Beeswax, Carnauba, Candelilla. They fulfill the most demanding natural wax requirements in a wide range of industries -- particularly cosmetics and pharmaceuticals.  Strahl & Pitsch exerts total control of inbound raw materials, with an on-site laboratory and on-site warehousing.  Its outbound finished goods are laboratory certified.  Strahl & Pitsch strives to be the industry leader in product, service, and technology. 

Project Background and Goals

A key component of Strahl & Pitsch's long-term success has been their continuous monitoring and improvement of business operations.   A number of areas in their workflow were recently targeted for cost reduction, due to their manual data recording and redundant data entry into isolation business applications.  Strahl & Pitsch manually recorded quality and lot tracking data during the refining and stocking of its waxes.  This data is used later to generate Certificates of Analysis that are shipped to customers with their product orders.  Strahl & Pitsch used separate software applications to generate product labels, shipping labels, and customized bills of lading.  In 2002, Strahl & Pitsch recognized that automation of these business processes -- through customizing of their business applications --could reduce cost, improve productivity, speed up operations, and reduce errors. 

Solution Implementation

Strahl & Pitsch selected Business Solutions Partners (BSP) to help them analyze their business processes, identify the key sources of data, develop database and reporting requirements, and design a system to automate their operations.  First, BSP developed a software application that captured the Certificate of Analysis data and stored it -- along with inventory data -- in their Microsoft Business Solutions Dynamics application.  This allowed the Certificate of Analysis to be automatically generated when inventory was shipped to the customer.  Next, BSP customized the Dynamics application to generate product labels and shipping labels.  Then, BSP customized the Dynamics application to generate custom bills of lading for each shipment.  All of these shipment documents are now generated automatically when the product order is shipped.  Finally, BSP used the Customer Specific Pricing feature in Dynamics to eliminate a paper-based system for non-standard pricing. 

Benefits Realized

Strahl & Pitsch realized most of the improvements that they had sought.  At the conclusion of the project, their business applications were more tightly integrated together and many of their manual processes had been automated.  Specific benefits to their business operations that Strahl & Pitsch achieved include: 

· Significantly reduced paperwork costs

· Reduced cost of manual data entry into multiple applications

· Faster, more accurate, and complete shipments

· Improved employee productivity and satisfaction

Testimonials

· "Business Solution Partners has saved us time and money by automating many of our manual business processes." - Bill DeLuca, President, Strahl & Pitsch.

· "By customizing our Microsoft Business Solutions application, BSP got our business systems to work faster and make fewer errors.  That's what we set out to do." - VP Sales, Strahl & Pitsch

"Integrated System Helps Manufacturer Plan Demand
and Streamline Ordering Processes"

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