People. Planet. Profit. These are the priorities of Busch Systems, a leader in the recycling and waste solution industry. 2020 is its 35th year in business. Most of its sales are various waste/recycling containers of all types, but recently the company started manufacturing plastic lumber out of 100% recycled content.
Enabling Technology
Challenge
Several years ago, the Busch team decided that they needed to implement an ERP system to keep moving forward as a business. Microsoft Dynamics NAV came up in these discussions primarily because of its high level of customizability.
VP of Operations Marty Pepper recalls that Busch’s first NAV implementation was almost 100% customized. While that helped their business get up and running more quickly, he also pointed out that it was a “pitfall” for them as well. Because it was so easy to customize NAV, they defaulted to customization even when a change in business process might have been a better approach.
For the next step of their NAV journey, Busch decided to re-implement its system from a different perspective. Where possible, it would stick to base NAV features and evaluate each customization request critically to separate the true needs from the wants.
To make that move confidently, though, Busch needed the best team they could assemble. After meeting Innovia Consulting at NAV User Group Summit in 2015, Marty recalls that he started to realize he was not “stuck” with the partner he had. He was struggling with them and wanted to branch out to find the help needed to push Busch’s ERP system to the next level.
He was looking for a partner that would:
- Have a deep understanding of manufacturing and how NAV could be utilized to its full potential in this sector.
- Train his team to both use their system well and handle daily help requests from users.
- Introduce and confidently recommend ISV solutions that met the company’s needs without the need for additional custom code.
In Innovia Consulting, he found a partner that could meet all these requirements and could advise him about business process development as a bonus!
Solution
Innovia began working with Busch even before the company officially switched partners. Bob Beaird came on-site to lead the team through valuable process development work, specifically with order fulfillment and purchasing. Then John Grant, one of Innovia’s manufacturing specialists, came to visit, providing valuable knowledge and training to Marty’s team. Marty describes John as a person with a comprehensive knowledge of manufacturing that you simply do not often find.
Innovia’s specialized knowledge on the financial and manufacturing side of NAV was the missing piece of the puzzle for Busch. They started working with Innovia more consistently and changed their partner of record not long after.
In 2019, Busch decided to do a reimplementation of their NAV system and brought on Innovia to help. However, because of the Busch team’s level of confidence with the system from years working with Innovia’s experts, they were able to largely manage this project internally. Innovia played a supporting role in this implementation, stepping in where needed to keep things moving or add expertise.
Results Achieved
Today, Busch is running their new version of NAV with up-to-date features and business processes. Not only that, but the company has a team assembled that can meet most of its technical needs going forward. Innovia helped them find the right ISV solutions for each part of their business, including Insight Works WMS to streamline the shipping process.
With the baseline NAV system in place, Busch is now looking at how they can innovate even more. Marty points out that his team is constantly on the lookout for any manual processes that can be integrated into their NAV ERP, and the guidance of Innovia has been invaluable in making those decisions. In fact, Marty credits the Innovia Customer Conference as a key resource in helping him find the right solutions:
At the Innovia Customer Conference, I was able to not only meet a wide variety of vendors and discuss with them exactly how they could solve the different challenges we face, but I was able to discuss with fellow NAV users what works and what doesn’t so we can make informed decisions. It was invaluable.
With smoother operations, faster shipping, and soon a new configurator to help customize their bin products, the Busch team is looking forward to the future!
A Partnership Beyond Just a Project
What makes Busch’s partnership with Innovia so unique is how much of the work they began taking on themselves over time. While many partners may try to control as much of a project as possible, Innovia does not think this way. The partnership, which at many times puts them into an advisory role, is more than just a project.
Marty continues to point to one thing that Innovia brings that prompted him to switch to them as Busch’s official partner of record and kept them in that role ever since:
I switched to Innovia as our partner of record primarily because of the depth and breadth of knowledge that each member of their team brought to the table. That’s what I was missing: Getting the feedback I needed to move forward.
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