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For 16 years automotive distribution company
Bearing Wholesalers has been the place to go in Melbourne for
bearings, bearing kits, oil seals and associated products.
In the last few years, they’ve grown
to eight outlets around Melbourne supplying these products to
end users as well as through a network of resellers. Staff numbers
have swelled from three to over 50 employees in the same period.
MomentumPro Enables Growth
“We’ve grown steadily every
year since our inception. Recently the graph has gone way up,” said
Mike Shoppee, Managing Director, Bearing Wholesalers. “In
the last three years growth has been exceptional and our internal
efficiency is getting better.”
He attributes this primarily to the installation of new warehouse
and distribution software from Australian company, Markinson Business Solutions, in 1999.
Big Reduction in Excess Stock
“Since we installed the MomentumPro package from Markinson,
we have reduced our stock holdings in excess of $500,000. This
has increased cash flow, improved our budgeting and made managing
the business a lot easier,” says Shoppee.
Management reports based on real-time data allow management
to better direct their staff, giving them parameters on where
they are compared to budget, what they are selling and what they
need to be doing.
“We know where we are in the business at any time. It’s
increased our management skills, allowing the business to maximise
performance,” Shoppee explains.
MomentumPro Addresses the Real-time Operational Needs
of Bearing Wholesalers
MomentumPro replaced an existing system. “We decided to
leave our other system due to a lack of multi-warehousing, which
was important as our business grew,” Shoppee said.
“Our main concern was the distribution from our central
store to all the branches and also the ordering from over 350
outside companies to head office.”
“We were looking for a system that provided information
such as availability of stock from our branches so staff could
readily locate a stocked item. We were also looking for a reordering
strategy capable of reviewing cycle periods, including reorder
points, days holding (stock cover) and lead times, both internal
and external.”
“We were looking for something for the long term, backed
by people who are honest and would work together with us.” Bearing
Wholesalers chose MomentumPro as a system that had the right
modules, functionality and future directions.
“In particular, we were impressed with MomentumPro’s
multi-warehousing modules and the fact that the system was an
excellent fit for the automotive parts industry,” Shoppee
said.
Today Bearing Wholesalers is using the Importing, Purchasing,
Pricing, Inventory, Sales Processing, Receivables, Payables,
General Ledger, Banking and Warehousing modules in MomentumPro.
The system has 40 users and handles information on 60,000 items
and 350 domestic and international creditors. It runs on a local
area network linking all the Bearing Wholesalers locations.
Close Partnership Brings Benefits
“We’re very happy with MomentumPro and with Markinson
as a supplier. They are active, keen and willing to work together
to make enhancements. We’ve been working hand in glove
with Markinson in developing the enhancements we wanted.”
“We’re in the middle of our third update and each
update has had the right enhancements,” Shoppee said.
The next step will be to implement eCommerce, which is important
for Bearing Wholesalers’ larger customers. “Markinson
are right up there with eCommerce and we are evaluating their
eCommerce module, WebOnline,” said Mike Shoppee.
“In summary, we’ve found MomentumPro to be a very
good system for an automotive distribution business like ours
and we’ve found Markinson Business Solutions a very collaborative
supplier.”
“It has certainly helped us in our stock control and stock
distribution program. It’s reduced our stock levels and
increased our cash flow, and we’ve been able to better
budget for taxation.”
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