NetSuite Lures Obama Medal-Maker Off AS/400
January 27, 2009 Alex Woodie
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Last week’s inauguration of President Barack Obama heralded a new age of hope and change for America. And for Medalcraft Mint of Green Bay, Wisconsin, the event marked the beginning of sales for the official presidential inaugural medallion for Obama, which go for about $60 each. For the first time in a long time, Medalcraft’s orders and manufacturing process will be handled not by AS/400 hardware, but via NetSuite‘s on demand ERP system, which the company recently migrated to. According to NetSuite, when Medalcraft came under new ownership in 2007, the new owners decided to “believe in change” and make a “bold” change. Out was the “legacy” AS/400 platform, which had become “difficult to customize and expensive for a small company to maintain,” NetSuite claims. Medalcraft relied on the BPCS ERP system, which was originally developed by SSA and is now owned and maintained by Infor. One of Medalcraft’s biggest concerns with the “costly, aging, and inefficient” AS/400-based ERP system was the handling of custom orders, NetSuite said. Medalcraft had to take a series of “complex” steps to process custom orders, which resulted in “tens of thousands of separate items.” Medalcraft’s new owners decided to move to NetSuite’s on-demand ERP offering, which the company manages from its San Mateo, California, headquarters. On top of the basic NetSuite setup, Medalcraft adopted the company’s “kitting and assemblies” module to help it deal with custom orders and keep inventory up to date. Medalcraft also selected NetSuite’s dashboard software to give it visibility into day to day activities. To connect with its four shippers’ computer systems, Medalcraft tapped NetSuite partner OzLink. And in the future, Medalcraft may adopt NetSuite’s e-commerce modules to augment its order-taking capabilities, which currently are conducted mostly over the phone.
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