There are several business processes that were used by the Summit Electric Supply company. Among them the important ones are:
1) ERP software from SAP-> Scalability and investors visibility was the two factors most important to the company and both these factors were very well tackled by the ERP software.SAP functionality in sales and distribution, materials management and financials greatly benefited the company to boost its distribution capacity.
2) SAP’s NetWeaver BW – For Business Intelligence reporting and analysis this process was used. This helped the company to evaluate the profitability of its sales channels,using what-if solutions.
3) The “Batch management” process- Wires and cable are Summit most important product category. It buys these products in reels of length 5000 feet and then cuts them into various lengths and sells to the customers which make it difficult to maintain the inventory of this product. The batch management process removed the problem of maintaining the inventory of such products.
2. What problems did Summit have with its old systems? What was the business impact of those problems?
There were a few problems that Summit went through with when they were using the old legacy systems. Some of the few problems they came across were---
The old system caused them to have delay with their supplies.
Also the system was complicated as it would separate different categories of products which eventually was difficult to combine when needed.
The business impact from the problems was that the system was not able to keep up with the fast growing business. It limited the business as it was only able to handle a few range of numbers and location at a time.
3. How did Summit’s ERP system improve operational efficiency and decisions making? Give several examples.
Summit’s ERP system improved operational efficiency and decisions making by advancing