Essential Business Invests in Dependable, Productivity-Accelerating and Future-Ready Integrated Solution
When water and natural gas stop flowing, little else matters. This is why businesses that manufacture water works, plumbing, pumps and natural gas products, such as A.Y. McDonald, were designated essential businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. To help ensure those indispensable elements remain readily available, Steve Savary, Vice President of IT at A.Y. McDonald Industries, is spearheading the company’s digital transformation efforts. Savary elaborated, “As a member of the strategic planning team, we are focused on driving revenue and efficiency through the smart application of technology.”
In support of that endeavor, a key strategic initiative is to rollout Epicor Kinetic across the entire breadth of A.Y. McDonald subsidiaries, a move that will also amplify the deployment of Epicor Advanced MES that has supported the manufacturing and injection molding businesses since 2018.
The leading manufacturer of water works, plumbing, pumps, natural gas, and plastic molding-injected products, A.Y. McDonald operates 13 facilities in the U.S. and Canada, including two foundry operations, four injection molding factories and seven manufacturing sites with over 100 computer numerical control (CNC) machining work centers. Recognized as one of the oldest family businesses in America, the 167-year-old company has a forward-looking attitude.
Savary acknowledged, “The move to Epicor Advanced MES jump-started our digital transformation efforts. We replaced manual processes characterized by Excel spreadsheets and white boards with a single system that enabled us to share data across sites, accurately capture costs and accelerate efficiencies.”
The move to Epicor Advanced MES jump-started our digital transformation efforts. We replaced manual processes characterized by Excel spreadsheets and white boards with a single system that enabled us to share data across sites, accurately capture costs and accelerate efficiencies.
Now, everything that operators need to do their jobs is at their fingertips. Furthermore, supervisors and maintenance co-workers have been equipped with tablets running Epicor Advanced MES, giving them the capability to access job schedules and status from anywhere. “Epicor unleashed our ability to get information into the hands of the co-workers doing and managing the work,” Savary remarked.
In addition, machine maintenance response time dramatically improved. Savary explained, “Footsteps are expensive. Epicor Advanced MES helps us keep operators in their work areas instead of wandering the floor looking for someone or for a part or documentation. If a machine has an issue, an alert automatically goes to the maintenance team to get it up and running quickly.”
A.Y. McDonald’s injection molding operation is a build-to-order model serving large national customers with just-in-time (JIT) delivery of components needed for assembly operations. “We're making money when our processes are running,” Savary shared. “Epicor Advanced MES enables us to match up different variables such as unique machines and tooling, to identify which jobs can run and on which machine. Those suggestions allow us to optimize workflows.”
Additionally, machine-level tracking gives production supervisors visibility into each cell and every cycle. Savary described, “At-a-glance, we can see if an operator isn’t keeping pace, or maybe their scrap rates are a bit high. That gives us the power to take early action and enhance operator efficiency.”
He added, “It enhances our ability to deliver on schedule. Even during COVID when so many industries were impacted by huge supply chain disruptions, we were able to accurately forecast when we could complete and deliver a job. It reinforced our credibility immensely.”
Savary is in the process of deploying Epicor Kinetic across the entire business, empowering the company to schedule work across different facilities based on orders coming in from a central location. He pinpointed, “Epicor Kinetic is the foundation of our business. It gives us synergies and visibility that we were lacking before. Now we have a single, consolidated financial point of view, in terms of what we are ordering and purchasing, as well as inventory control, production and shipping.”
Epicor Kinetic data is also contributing to a Pay-for-Performance (PFP) program. If productivity exceeds established targets, the company shares the incremental profit with the responsible co-workers.
“The data is pulled out of Epicor Kinetic after each shift. The next morning, results are posted on a 70-inch monitor on the floor that shows what we achieved yesterday and if and how the hourly rate changed as a result,” Savary explained. “We also use that data for coachable moments. For example, we can identify if a co-worker had an off day and discuss the shortfall as appropriate.”
Epicor Kinetic is the foundation of our business. It gives us the synergies and visibility that we were lacking before. Now we have a single, consolidated financial point of view, in terms of what we are ordering and purchasing, as well as inventory control, production, and shipping.
Savary highlighted his confidence in Epicor: “Every time we turn Epicor on at a new company, we have taken orders, manufactured and generated cash without interrupting the business.”
Epicor Kinetic integrated with Epicor Advanced MES has created a single source of truth, providing senior leadership with the insights they need across all the businesses, to make informed decisions.
A.Y. McDonald experienced tremendous growth over the last few years. To advance efficiencies to accommodate that growth, A.Y. McDonald strove to deploy centralized, standardized and repeatable processes. “Whether it's staff, parts or capital acquisition, we have one proven set of best practices across an international operation,” Savary said. Next up, the company’s strategic planning team is streamlining the back-office infrastructure, including deploying Epicor Maintenance Management and Epicor Cash Collect across the subsidiary companies.
Another key goal is to become a paperless business, an objective that resulted from. A.Y. McDonald’s Emerging Leaders program, which identifies high-potential co-workers and offers a nine-month management education.
“We were spending $18,000 a month on paper and toner for job packets,” Savary admitted. “All safety and quality documentation, CAD drawings, part drawings, instructions and job schedules have moved into Epicor Kinetic. It also means that all information is current. If an engineer revises a mechanical drawing or a specification changes, it is immediately available to everyone.Our foundry is now completely paperless and 40% of factory operations are paper-free.”
Savary and the A.Y. McDonald group of companies understand the importance of dependability. After all, when the 2021 big freeze ruptured hundreds of pump heads in the state of Texas, our customers counted on A.Y. McDonald to get parts overnight to get water running again.
“Epicor solutions have phenomenal availability, which is crucial to our business,” Savary imparted. “We have 1,800 co-workers and scores of customers that depend on it.” And, because Epicor Kinetic is linked to A.Y. McDonald’s customer-facing ecommerce portal, the company can share product availability, price, even order and invoice history. Savary summarized, “That enables us to match customers’ expectations for access to data 24/7/365.”