Lawn mower manufacturer ups efficiency by 40%

Lawn tractor and recreational vehicle manufacturer, Murray has eliminated its ‘spreadsheet nightmare’ after implementing a business intelligence and enterprise software system that it claims, “Has upped business efficiency by 40% and calculates annual and actual budgeted spend in just 45 minutes.” The company is using Coda’s enterprise (ERP) software integrated with Cognos’ business intelligence and reporting system, to help eliminate the hundreds of standalone spreadsheets it relied on for budgeting and planning information. The system provides real time sales and customer information across Murray’s supply chain, enabling it to produce more accurate trends analysis. The new Coda Planning software integrates with Murray’s existing Coda financials system and manufacturing systems giving the firm a unified, central database into which staff from more than 260 departments can input budgeting information. So spreadsheets no longer have to be manually updated. “We can now see sales history all the way back to 1998, so for example, we can report on what we sold to Wal-Mart last season and what it is budgeted to spend,” explains Rose Mellilo, Murray’s financial systems manager. “Armed with these figures, we can then accurately plan our business at every level. “Planning, budgeting and consolidation had previously been arduous, slowed down by manual processes. We had no conformity. Individuals across departments were doing their own thing so the process inevitably involved re-keying data into separate spreadsheets, which then had to be checked and reported on manually,” adds Mellilo. She says the new software has, “Enabled us to increase efficiency by 40% by reducing the our period close from five days down to just three.”