Converter adds business management software

“We’re proud of our 99.86% on-time delivery and equally matched quality assurance,” says Bruce Frey, CFO at Rice Packaging Solutions. “We knew we needed to replace our legacy system in order to continue to meet and exceed our customers’ expectations.” The solution: Epicor AVP.

Designed specifically for folding carton manufacturers, Epicor AVP will replace Rice Packaging Solutions’ DOS-based accounting program and homegrown operating system, which have been in place for more than 30 years. “Our legacy systems were inefficient and we were constantly running into problems trying to integrate them with modern graphic design programs,” says Frey as he explains how errors occurred because the hardware overran their packaging design software with the wrong instructions. “In addition, we were dealing with double invoices and bad inventory numbers, among other inefficiencies and inaccuracies. Putting all of this together, we had to change.”

Epicor AVP delivers strong overall functionality to meet Rice Packaging Solutions’ business requirements. “We wanted a software solution that had been proven and a system we were comfortable with,” says Frey. “We feel that Epicor AVP is the standard that other software packages need to be measured against.”

The key functional areas that will be most valuable to Rice Packaging Solutions include estimating, multiple quotes, scheduling, inventory management, real-time reports and analyses, dashboards and integration with its packaging prepress system.

“We hope to become more sophisticated and learn more about our company, particularly from a financial standpoint,” says Frey. “Moving to a modern platform will allow us to provide better customer service without jumping through hoops, as well as enable us to become more efficient with timely and accurate information. We spend 35% of our efforts double checking information, from the front end down to the manufacturing floor and out the door. Epicor AVP will aid in this tremendously. There’s a lot of waste and chance for errors that will be solved with this new software.”

Reducing waste in terms of time and resources, combined with the benefits of achieving confidence in data and increasing the speed at which Rice Packaging Solutions can service their customers is how the company will justify the software purchase. “We could no longer tolerate the errors and poor performance of our legacy systems. When you measure the software purchase in terms of results, time and resources, it’s an easy justification,” says Frey.