Progress Makers Awards Recognize Outstanding Digital Transformations at Inforum

NEW YORK, Sept. 25, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Infor, a leading provider of industry-specific cloud applications, today announced the winners of the 2018 Infor Progress Makers Awards at the company's annual user conference, Inforum, in Washington, DC. These awards recognize customers who drive innovation and showcase exceptional results in business performance and transformation using Infor products and services.

A panel of Infor solution and industry experts evaluated each nomination and selected winners based on scope and depth of performance improvement, quantifiable business benefits, customer focus and satisfaction, and technology use and innovation.

"At Infor, our customers are at the heart of everything we do – we work with customers to meet their needs and deliver maximum value," said Susan Beal, Infor's Chief Customer Officer. "Each year the Progress Makers Awards provide us an opportunity to recognize the outstanding achievements of our customers, and to highlight the innovative ways Infor helps drive progress around the world." 

The 2018 Infor Progress Makers are:

Endries International
Endries International manages over 500,000 SKUs including various fasteners and related production components. In order to increase efficacy, speed, and better keep track of inventory, Endries needed a solution to integrate its enterprise resource planning (ERP) and vendor managed inventory (VMI) solutions that were compatible with their existing Infor Distribution SX.e platform.

To meet these needs, the company selected the Infor Intelligent Open Network (ION) with Pulse and Infor Ming.le tools to manage workflow and easily create tasks based on data input. The system now helps auditors  view potential stock options and forward recommendations to the sales team, allowing for an immediate response to customer needs.

As a result, Endries has helped customers shrink their inventory footprint, resulting in reduced inventory on the floor by 15-40%. Further, Endries has increased efficiency by 30% because they are able to have one person doing everything with the ION and Ming.le desktop. Because Ion Pulse offers a flexible, lightweight messaging system that exchanges and triggers data between systems, Endries has been able to procure accounts they would not have previously been able to manage because they are better able to monitor remote locations.

Nebraska Methodist Health System
In 2011, Nebraska Methodist Health System (NMHS) initiated a significant medical surgical supply cost reduction initiative.   The health system's internal audit team identified concerns with purchasing practices, pricing inaccuracies, maintenance of the technology and inventory management culture. NMHS also needed greater attention to contract pricing adherence in order to maintain savings that were executed.

NMHS implemented a formal Clinical Value Analysis program in 2010, but the initial program lacked the ability to sustain savings. NMHS determined there were opportunities with Infor Procurement that had not been utilized or maximized and began to focus on this feat. 

To accomplish this goal, several strategies were applied.  A more robust item master was embraced (rather than a minimal item file) and a contracting table became the main source of truth for all pricing.  Asset inventories were also created for main supply areas with full visibility into purchase history across 10 companies (including 4 hospitals) that make up NMHS. This work ensured NMHS had the proper number of items in the right places at the right times. With this insight into purchasing patterns, NHMS has been able to embrace this data when negotiating with suppliers and working through the Value Analysis process. As a result, NMHS has realized more than $52 million in financially validated savings for the health system since 2011. Presently, NMHS is hosted within Infor CloudSuite Healthcare.

Additionally, improved functionality from requisition to invoice has lessened manual overrides of the system, improved pricing accuracy, and reduced payment delays. The expansion of the item master now helps requisitioners by researching resource options before they are purchased, while enhancing visibility into usage, item variation and market share. As a result, NMHS reduced the use of non-file items by 58%, increased visibility into non-labor expenses, improved data quality into Infor Procurement and lowered hospital asset inventories by 17%.

Riverside Healthcare
Riverside Healthcare is an integrated healthcare system serving the needs of patients across several counties in Illinois.  In 2016, Riverside, an Infor Lawson customer since 2003, needed to update its human resources system to a system that would streamline processes, increase performance and require as little maintenance as possible because the company's IT team was focused on EPIC installation and support.

After much research, Riverside selected Infor Lawson and Infor CloudSuite Human Capital Management (HCM), moving to the cloud and upgrading to Infor Global Human Resources (GHR) and V10 payroll. A move to the cloud enabled Riverside to keep the system current and functioning well and eliminated an outdated system. 

CloudSuite HCM has enabled Riverside to automate many workflows, generating efficiency gains and increasing employee satisfaction. With greater data accessibility, Riverside is able to proactively manage employee trends to deliver a superior employee experience. The project is expected to save the organization over $250,000 annually. 

Greystar Real Estate Partners, LLC
Greystar is a leading, fully integrated multifamily real estate company offering expertise in investment management, development, and property management of rental housing properties globally. As the largest operator of apartments in the US, the company receives a large volume of data and needed a robust tool that would integrate well with their current platform.

Greystar turned to Birst as a Business Intelligence (BI) tool to further streamline large amounts of data while creating unparalleled levels of analytics. Using over 50+ unique data sources and more than 100 performance metrics, Greystar can now quickly access insights on property performance and client service across its portfolio. Birst provides the company with a single source of data in its reporting, eliminating disparate, conflicting sources between departments.

Along with Birst, Greystar has pioneered a comprehensive, single-platform, system-agnostic business intelligence solution with data sources that include: Operations, Financial Management, Payroll, Property Management Systems, Online Reputation Management, Market Data, Demographics and Benchmarking. This represents over 700 users with an average adoption rate of approximately 70%.

With this tool, Greystar has been able to provide real time data to assist with making decisions regarding communities and their performance, enhancing data quality, improving timeliness of data and reactions to that data to help provide even higher levels of customer service. Previously, end users would spend about 2 hours per month gathering data which now is immediately available with Birst, increasing efficiency and resulting in cost savings for the organization.

El Dorado Packaging
El Dorado Packaging is a private equity owned manufacturer of printed paper bags for use in the industrial and consumer packaging markets. The project goal was to replace two outdated ERP systems at three plants, standardize best-in-class business processes across the company, and provide improved visibility to customers, its sales team, and internal stakeholders. To provide access from any location and minimize the support costs compared to its legacy systems, El Dorado preferred a cloud-based ERP solution that would scale as the business continued to grow and evolve.

Utilizing Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Infor CRM, Infor Configure Price Quote (CPQ), and Infor Factory Track, El Dorado has implemented these offerings to provide integrated systems across the enterprise – from tracking customer opportunities to order entry, production and shipping. El Dorado also developed a Customer Website Portal with Infor to provide data on sales order and customer inventory information. El Dorado has one plant remaining for its ERP conversion, and is also implementing the Quality and Maintenance modules in CSI, while upgrading to the latest software version of CSI.

With real-time access to reliable data, El Dorado Packaging employees are able to make well-informed business decisions, respond quickly to customer needs, and make proactive supply chain decisions. Using CPQ, the customer service team can quickly configure new product orders, reducing order input time. Reporting has improved from the legacy systems, with a reduction in time to develop custom reports and the ability to easily export any kind of data for analytics. El Dorado was also able to reduce the need for outside ERP database support, leading to approximately $45K in annual savings alone.  

Rooftop Systems, Inc.
Rooftop Systems Inc., a manufacturer of commercial air conditioning accessories for original equipment manufacturers, national accounts, and wholesale distributors, was relying on customers to either call or fax orders and requests for quotes. To continue to grow its business, Rooftop Systems recognized it needed a more modern solution that would streamline the process for its original equipment manufacturer (OEM) customers and distributors to configure, quote, and purchase products.

Leveraging Infor Sales Portal and Configure Price Quote (CPQ), Rooftop Systems was able to generate new sales and help its customers place orders with greater ease and accuracy. The implementation has led to greater insight into what the team is working on and a streamlined sales process, increasing efficiency across load capacity planning and improving sales staff training for new users in the field. Already the company has beat its year-to-date sales forecast by 10% and has effectively doubled the number of orders for key product line.

Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District
Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District, a water utility company in Lake Elsinore, California, needed a way to manage rapid expansion of its water infrastructure to keep pace with growth while at the same time replace financial reporting and human resource functions to increase efficiency. To do this Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District turned to Infor Lawson Financials, Infor Human Resource Management with Ming.le and Lawson Supply Chain Management to scale its operations and control costs.

The company utilizes Ming.le as a central portal for a wide range of IT services including self-service HR and BI. Using Infor Service's Center of Excellence team's Lawson financials implementation experience to create a blended delivery model has further allowed it to reduce cost.  As a result, Elsinore Valley Municipal Water District has experienced high growth without having to increase staff and eliminated several paper-based processes though automation. Further, the implementation has led to a 70% reduction in payroll staff workload, a 3-4-week reduction in time needed to produce benefits statements, and a 286% increase in payments made to suppliers—all while keeping accounts payable staff constant.

Pilot Travel Centers LLC
Pilot Travel Centers (Pilot Flying J), the largest operator of travel centers and travel plazas in North America, sought to streamline more than 60 internal/external software systems into one integrated solution deployed in the cloud so it could be easily updated and supported. The company also wanted a full document management system to streamline content and a single method of communication with all 28,000 team members that was mobile and offered a single gateway for centralizing administrative tasks from a single portal.

To meet these challenges and replace the 60 internal/external system's, Pilot Flying J implemented several Infor products including Infor Lawson S3 Landmark, Infor OS, Infor CloudSuite HCM, Infor ION, Infor WFM, Infor EAM, Infor Ming.le, Infor Dynamic Enterprise Performance Management (Infor d/EPM) and Birst. 

As a result, Pilot Flying J has been able to decommission over 30 internal and 30 external systems, increase scalability allowing for virtual zero cost instantaneous spin-up of acquired entities, and manage 500,000 hard assets, increasing spend control for $100MM annual maintenance expenses. To date, the company has seen a million dollars in savings in upgrade costs and another million in savings by using Infor OS for collaboration and enterprise searching.  Further, through upgrading Lawson and moving to the cloud, Pilot Flying J saw an ROI of 6.3% and increased efficiency by almost 4%. Deploying Infor Human Capital Management (HCM) resulted in a 5.1% increase in savings. Infor Portal resulted in a 69% ROI.  Workforce Management(WFM) resulted in a 4.4% ROI, and Infor Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) resulted in an over 200% ROI. 

About Infor

Infor builds business software for specific industries in the cloud. With 16,500 employees and over 68,000 customers in more than 170 countries, Infor software is designed for progress.  To learn more, please visit www.infor.com.

For more information:
Dan Barnhardt 
Infor  
646-336-1731
[email protected]

SOURCE Infor

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