Established in 1987, Living Nature has carved out a firm place
in the world of natural beauty products. Committed to developing
and selling a product range made without the use of synthetic
preservatives or parabens, all Living Nature skincare products are
also free of animal ingredients and made without animal testing.
Utilising some of the 85% of plants unique to New Zealand, their
products represent a company committed to innovation as well as
being conscious of a market looking for truly natural products.
With its head office and plant in Kerikeri, Living Nature
manufactures and distributes products both locally and
internationally, as well as generating healthy sales worldwide
through their e-commerce website. With turnover well in excess of
NZ$20 million and export sales increasing tenfold, the company has
significant growth targeted over the next 3 years.
Healthy growth hampered by legacy systems
In 2007 an internal evaluation of the existing solutions
supporting the company's business processes highlighted the
limitations posed to Living Nature's planned growth.
Using two separate MYOB systems (Aurora & Retail),
spreadsheets and other assorted legacy solutions, Living Nature's
potential was being severely restricted by the lack of integration,
resulting in inefficiencies and an inability to keep up with ever
increasing business and production requirements.
A wide range of ongoing issues were posed by the existing
system. These included poor reporting capabilities, limited
accounting capabilities (with regards to multi-currency and
multi-company), lack of control of inventory and double entry of
data. A drive towards Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) meant
Living Nature needed to put in place batch control, traceability
and quarantine functionality. Along with this were specific
requirements to have MRP calculations to replace the spreadsheet
planning system, and the ability to handle the EDI requirements of
new customers in Australia and New Zealand.
A checklist for success
Peter Pooran, Living Nature's General Manager - Operations, was
looking for solutions to all these issues. "Overall, we needed to
achieve improvements in efficiency across the board and have easy
access to the right information to make better business
decisions.
"When we made the decision to move forward we developed a
checklist which included multi-company and multi-currency,
financial management, supply chain management, manufacturing,
business intelligence, reporting, POS, EDI interface, call
management and CRM."
Living Nature evaluated three solutions, and then selected
Microsoft Dynamics AX in tandem with experienced implementation
partner, Koorb Consulting.
"Dynamics AX had the closest fit to requirements with standard
functionality for the overall cost," commented Pooran. "Koorb's
proven experience with similar New Zealand companies, their strong
team of consultants and a structured implementation methodology, as
well the ability to offer local support, clearly made them the
partner of choice."
About the implementation
Living Nature implemented most of the modules available within
the Dynamics AX Advanced Management Business Ready Licence,
including Trade & Logistics, Master Planning, Financials, Fixed
Assets and CRM.
The system was implemented with very few customisations.
An interface was provided to Microsoft Retail Management System
so that the stock held in the retail stores could be replenished
automatically from within Dynamics AX, and also so that financial
and end user contact information could be held centrally in one
system.
End customer contact information is made available to marketing
via the Dynamics AX CRM module.
After go-live, and as trading volume increased, the Intercompany
module was added to support the sale of product to Australia.
EDI interfaces were initially developed to import Farmer's
department stores purchase orders into the Living Nature system -
other stores purchase order formats have been added to the EDI
interface from time to time.
To empower Living Nature to manage as much of Dynamics AX as
possible in-house, Koorb trained three Super Users within the
business. These Living Nature Super Users assist and support the
other 17 users on a day-to-day basis where required.
Summary
Post implementation, Dynamics AX has more than proven
itself.
Living Nature has seen clear benefits with much tighter stock
and production control, vastly improved financial reporting, total
capture of data and elimination of supporting spreadsheet
activity.
Dynamics AX's inbuilt functionality supports GMP systems, and
with some modification enables better efficiency via EDI process
and the resultant reduction in human error. Dynamics AX has also
been integrated with RMS (Microsoft Dynamics Retail Management
System), the POS in place at Living Nature's retail outlets.
"Dynamics AX is a great system solution for our business,"
commented Pooran. "We're fanatical about product quality and
control of our production and supply chain, and a single integrated
system which allows us to run our business efficiently and gives us
the information to make decisions is exactly what we need. Dynamics
AX delivers."
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Quick Facts:
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Workstations: 17
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Industry: Manufacturing/Distribution
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Project Type: ERP
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Website:
www.livingnature.co.nz
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Customer Size: Medium
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Year: 2007
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Solutions:
MS Dynamics AX V4 SP2
MS Windows Server 2003 R2
MS Windows Server 2003 Small Business Server
MS SQL Server 2000
Atlas XL - Globe Software
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Functional areas:
Financials, Trade, Logistics, Master Planning, Production,
Resources, Business Analysis, CRM, Intercompany
Scenario:
Enterprise Resource Planning, Financial reporting, Forecasting
and planning, Intercompany trading, EDI
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Benefits:
Integrated financial management
Stability and ease of use
Planning - delivering lower inventory, better customer service,
lower supply chain costs
Improved inventory accuracy
Support for growth plans, and multi-currency intercompany
trade
Intergration with Retail POS system
EDI import of customer purchase orders from major retail chain
stores
Stability - low risk solution with strong local support
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