Who:
Five Star Airport Alliance (formerly G&T Conveyor) is the largest privately held turnkey baggage handling systems manufacturer in the United States. Five Star’s products are used throughout airports worldwide for transporting customer’s luggage from the ticket counter to the aircraft, from the aircraft to the baggage claim area and through security checkpoints.
Website:
Location:
The company’s headquarters are located in Salt Lake City, UT with an additional locations spread throughout North America providing sales and support services.
Business Problem:
Five Star had been running multiple legacy systems that were not fully implemented and were unable to effectively support the company’s operations as it continued to grow. The company needed a solution to replace their disparate applications, provide greater operational visibility and improve their sales process.
Solution:
Five Star implemented GLOVIA G2 to standardize the company onto a single enterprise-wide application and provide greater support, management and visibility of their company operations.
Benefit:
Now live on GLOVIA G2, Five Star Airport Alliance has improved scope and management of all business operations and material movement which has increased the speed and accuracy of estimates and product development as well as shortened quote-to-deliver cycle times for their complex engineer- and make- to-order products.
In airports all across the United States baggage is continually moved throughout the airport – from the ticket counter to the aircraft, from the aircraft to the baggage claim area and through security checkpoints. The company that makes this possible is Five Star, the largest privately held baggage handling systems manufacturer in the United States. From engineering, manufacturing and installing custom designed baggage handling systems Five Star handles it all. The company also offers post sale service and support to provide their customers with the quality products they need to run their operations.
With continued competition and looking to increase their profits Five Star searched for ways to improve business performance. The company focused on their multiple information systems, as they were becoming ineffective in supporting their growing operations.
The Selection Process
With multiple systems not fully integrated or even implemented, Five Star began searching for a single solution that could manage all of their enterprise needs. “We first looked at what it was going to take to re-engineer and re-implement our current systems to provide the functionality we wanted. We found it was going to take quite a bit, so rather than just look at our current systems, we decided to see what other solutions might be a better fit for our business,” stated Orin Owen, Director of IT for Five Star Airport Alliance.
Because no two baggage-handling systems are exactly alike, Five Star has to design their complex products according to each customer’s individual requirements. It was of the utmost importance that the new solution they selected fully supports their make-to-order (MTO) and engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing environments, while also providing greater visibility to better manage their operations.
“We really wanted a company that not only supports our ETO/MTO manufacturing needs but also has a relatively large corporate structure and customer base. We are not willing to wager our company’s future on a smaller vendor that may not be around in three or four years,” stated Bill Roche, ERP team leader for Five Star. “CrescentOne met all our functionality requirements and also exceeded the competition in terms of the customer service and implementation support.”
Through extensive development, aided by customer input, CrescentOne has created a powerful yet flexible solution that supports the actual ways ETO/MTO manufacturers, like Five Star, operate.
CrescentOne provides a complete solution – from integrating disparate applications to being able to easily configure complex products to improving inventory management.
“We chose Glovia because their product functionality and corporate structure are the best fit for our business and what we want to accomplish in terms of integration and gaining greater control of our operations,” continues Owen. “With CrescentOne’s 30 year history in the manufacturing industry and the support of their parent company, Fujitsu, we have no concerns regarding the company’s viability.”
Managing Complex Products
One of the critical functionality requirements Five Star needed with their new enterprise solution was to manage order and product configurations quickly and easily. CrescentOne’s configurator provides Five Star with a web based product configurator to quote, sell and deliver their complex products effectively and in a timely manner.
“CrescentOne’s configurator was a key component of the decision making process because of its flexible capabilities. The solution reacts to project changes immediately to rebalance supplies, resources and demands,” continues Roche. “We are able to get away from customizing every component we manufacture and move to a more standardized environment, enabling us to “plug and play”, to configure our products.”
CrescentOne’s Configurator was a key component of the decision making process because of its flexible capabilities. The solution reacts to project changes immediately to rebalance supplies, resources and demands.
Improved Visibility
Inventory management is another area of great interest to Five Star, as the company needs a way to track their components from engineering all the way through installation. “We are improving our visibility so we know where a product is as it flows through manufacturing. We can then anticipate our inventory capacity based on what we currently have in stock and know what additional inventory we need for further work,” states Owen.
CrescentOne’s inventory management functionality provides Five Star a complete system with integrated, interactive management of all their inventory and full visibility of all material movement. The functionality also provides complete multi-location management and makes planning inventory replenishment more timely and effective.
“We want to provide all employees with greater visibility into what we are actually doing for a project and have that information pushed or flow through the configurator,” continues Owen. “By having one central location to view project information everyone is on the same page and able to see what is required to meet the project requirements, configuration and deadline.”
Managing Complex Products
One of the critical functionality requirements Five Star needed with their new enterprise solution was to manage order and product configurations quickly and easily. CrescentOne’s Configurator provides Five Star with a web based product configurator to quote, sell and deliver their complex products effectively and in a timely manner.
“We want to provide all employees with greater visibility into what we are actually doing for a project and have that information pushed or flow through the Configurator,” continues Owen. “By having one central location to view project information everyone is on the same page and able to see what is required to meet the project requirements, configuration and deadline.”
Looking ahead, Five Star will take a careful, well thought out approach in rolling CrescentOne out to other locations. “We want to make sure the solution is a proper fit for what we do at other locations. Right now, two of our other locations look to be a potential fit for CrescentOne,” explains Owen. “We look forward to having a long and prosperous partnership with CrescentOne.”
Working with CrescentOne
As new software implementations, especially a full enterprise solution like CrescentOne’s, are often labor intensive and time consuming the support the company receives is vitally important. “CrescentOne’s support was good. We had consultants here almost everyday to help us with understanding the business process and modeling of how to fit our business model to CrescentOne and vice versa,” says Owen.
Looking ahead, Five Star Airport Alliance will take a careful, well thought out approach in rolling CrescentOne out to other locations. “We want to make sure the solution is a proper fit for what we do at other locations. Right now, two of our other locations look to be a potential fit for CrescentOne,” explains Owen. “We look forward to having a long and prosperous partnership with CrescentOne.”
