EMSEAL Joint Systems, LTD Improves Operations & Scalability with xTuple

EMSEAL used a custom-developed manufacturing system built on a Microsoft Access platform. Since the software was unsupported, and did not include important purchasing and inventory control modules, EMSEAL management collectively decided to obtain a new fully-functional Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, running on a modern, fully-supported platform, with superior performance in a Windows operating system environment.

EMSEAL’s primary functional challenge was a need for better inventory control and integrated purchasing.

EMSEAL has two corporate entities with a large amount of intra-company purchasing, necessitating customized data transfer capabilities. EMSEAL’s business complexity was further challenged by a multi-dimensional sales commission structure, outside the native capabilities of most ERP systems.

EMSEAL management researched several legacy business management software vendors, including SAP, Microsoft, Sage and Epicor, but ultimately chose xTuple after testing and piloting with the free and open source xTuple PostBooks, which has been downloaded by other companies in similar situations over one million times. Overall EMSEAL spent approximately six months of preliminary research and investigation followed by a year of intense piloting of xTuple capabilities, closely following xTuple’s recommended implementation methodology, which is also available to the public on xTuple’s website.

EMSEAL I/T Manager Keith Rauseo said open source played an important part in the decision to select xTuple ERP: “We expected a need for significant customization and new module development which could be best accomplished in an open source environment, and we also appreciated the ability to reference the source code to do our own problem resolution.”

According to Rauseo, “xTuple offered the best functionality and flexibility with much lower up-front and ongoing expenses.”

EMSEAL had no hesitation embracing a new ERP system. “We jumped right in with xTuple! Sometimes the water seemed really hot, but we worked around all issues and despite our limited internal resources, we got to a successful launch in record time. xTuple has been able to handle just about every curve ball we’ve thrown at it so far,” said Rauseo.

According to Rauseo, xTuple ERP addresses EMSEAL’s business issues very well, especially the company’s complex operating environment with two locations in different countries, each having its own database instance, with multiple purchasing transactions continually moving back and forth. With xTuple, EMSEAL has been able to develop processes that automate most of the intra-company transactions and custom modules to handle commissions, accessory item calculation, gross margin reporting, and a large collection of ad hoc management reports.

Rauseo says, “The quality of support xTuple provides is just excellent. Far and away the most personal attention I have seen from a software vendor. The issue reporting capability, coupled with fast response time and occasional fixes within one or two business days, which one can often apply immediately, leads to a great customer-vendor relationship.”

“What makes xTuple different is the people AND the product. I like xTuple employees and have found everyone I’ve worked with to be helpful, responsive, and knowledgeable, not just about xTuple, but about ERP in general. I like that using xTuple allowed us to implement a full-featured ERP system on-time and under budget, at approximately 40% of the cost of other ‘big name’ products. The base system did a lot of what we needed to do, and it’s been relatively easy to build the other things we needed. It is quite easy to administer, both within the GUI and on the database administrative level,” said Rauseo.

EMSEAL has significantly improved inventory control using xTuple ERP, saving the equivalent of weeks of employee time every month within the company’s manufacturing and accounting teams. EMSEAL’s custom accessories calculator saves hours of work every week within the order entry team.

“Overall, we just run more efficiently, and data is more visible and accessible to everyone on the team with xTuple,” added Rauseo.