Products & Services
Cres Cor designs and Manufacturers mobile food services solutions.
For over 60 years, Cres Cor has been a leader in the commercial food service equipment industry. Founded in 1936 in Mentor, Ohio, Cres Cor began as a sheet metal shop, fabricating florescent light fixtures and drying ovens, which led to specializing in the design and manufacturing of food service equipment. Early on when competition was light and demand was high, Cres Cor grew rapidly, with clients such as Marriott hotels, Opryland and several large Las Vegas hotels, as well as restaurant chains like Red Lobster, Olive Garden and Bob Evans.
While the company’s business grew, the business processes failed to advance to support that growth. The company was fragmented in many ways: manufacturing and distribution were spread among different buildings, and the methods of planning for production and inventory and the various departments were antiquated. From accounting, to sales and marketing, to the shop floor, the company was very disconnected. Meanwhile, new competitors appeared on the horizon, and Cres Cor’s market share began to shrink.
Turning to lean manufacturing to streamline operations
In 1996, Cres Cor began evaluating its practices and manufacturing methods in order to keep pace with the competition and the industry. In an effort to win back market share, Cres Cor decided to change the corporate culture and implement basic lean manufacturing concepts. Lean manufacturing stresses increases in productivity, efficiency and product output, while reducing inventory—all while considering customer needs and expectations. “We knew we had to move away from our fragmented, departmentalized corporate culture and promote a team-based continuous improvement process in our workforce,” said Rio DeGennaro, director of sales and marketing at Cres Cor. “At the same time, we moved toward lean manufacturing’s ‘pull approach’ and set up a value stream within our manufacturing facility.”
Implementing a proven business solution
Converting from an outdated, disjointed, “home-grown” manufacturing system to a new extended ERP system can be a challenge. For Cres Cor, it was a welcome one.
Cres Cor teamed with Infor to train and educate business system users in restructuring the existing processes. “The first thing we did was sit down and make a chart of our current processes—and it looked like a plate of spaghetti,” comments Mayher. “When we outlined business processes using SyteLine it became a lot clearer and we were finally able to align our processes with our business priorities.”
Even with so many changes, SyteLine made adapting the process simple. Through the implementation process, Cres Cor learned that SyteLine’s functionality matched the way they did business. “One of the big advantages to SyteLine is that it fit the Cres Cor business. We didn’t modify or change our process in choosing this solution—it works the way our business is run,” notes DeGennaro.
With a strong core implementation team and well-trained employees, the transition to SyteLine was seamless. On January 1, 2002, Cres Cor went live on SyteLine. “The switchover was completely invisible to the customers,” states Tom Doorley, director of purchasing. “That day, we were able to enter orders, make products, invoice and ship. It was an unqualified success.” Real results
When Cres Cor selected SyteLine, it was with the goal to use each module and application to its fullest. Within a very short time of going live, Cres Cor was doing just that—using nearly all core SyteLine modules, including material resource planning (MRP) and scheduling along with SyteLine Advanced Forms and SyteLine Business Intelligence. Using SyteLine, Cres Cor has increased accessibility to data and reporting that has helped its managers make smarter and more timely business decisions in areas such as job costing, inventory and production control and sales analysis. Originally an 80 percent make-to-order business, Cres Cor has applied lean manufacturing principles together with SyteLine to convert to an 80 percent make-to-stock company, reducing their inventory by 25 percent while increasing product quality. Although the company now offers 10 percent more products, capacity has increased by 12 percent and productivity by 15 percent, without adding additional staff. Cres Cor has also experienced timesaving benefits in many areas. The production control department schedules thousands of parts on a weekly basis, a job that used to take three to four days. It is now accomplished in one day, thanks to the material resource planning application. On-time deliveries have increased to more than 90 percent, compared to 60 percent in 1996. Cycle times for high volume items are down from the typical four to six weeks to 24 hours and 48 hours.
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