Heaven Hill Distilleries explains how they’ve achieved their goals and how they became more agile.
Recently, I was in conversation with Christian Hestermann, Research Director at Gartner. Christian talked about what is different with IFS compared to our competitors and how IFS is a very open company with a strong product and good customer references.
I think evidence of this is a recent case study featuring Kentucky-based Heaven Hill Distilleries. The company has 550 employees, operates two main plants in the US and two sub-contracting sites in Europe. Their products are available in 60 countries.
Heaven Hill went live on their first version of IFS Applications in 2003. They have upgraded since then and are now on IFS Applications 8, released in 2012.
Today IFS Applications is the backbone of the entire business. The solution covers all main processes, and spans demand to forecast through MRP, sales, warehousing, manufacturing and procurement. IFS Applications also covers asset maintenance and finance.
The IFS backbone creates the very foundation for control, the ability for Heaven Hill to manage their business using a single version of the truth available to everyone, not least the ability to cope with change.
Here are two examples of how a modern ERP system like IFS Applications can help in creating business agility:
- Resources used to schedule manufacturing are also maintenance objects. Interruptions caused by preventive maintenance or repair are instantly visible to the production planners who can easily take action.
- Demand forecasts will change based on seasonality, campaigns and promotions. With IFS Applications, the forecast is uploaded directly into the Master Production Schedule, which gives immediate visibility into material and resource planning caused by any forecast changes.
These are simple examples. Basically, an integrated ERP solution that’s implemented well creates a common view of the reality, across departmental boundaries and geographies.
Heaven Hill’s story confirms that we are an open company with a strong product working in close collaboration with our customers to reach common business targets. Watching Alan Latts, Director of Corporate Planning at Heaven Hill, and listening to what he says really does support Gartner’s view on IFS.
- Read the full story – download the written case study.
