Falson Supply Co., Inc. started in 1965. Frank Palumbo (1916 - 1994) would be proud to see what the little storefront has grown to be. Their niche is Mechanical Contractors and Plumbing Contractors. They service all Contractors including Electrical Contractors and others, but their real specialties are Mechanical and Plumbing Contractors. Milwaukee, DeWalt, Makita, Porter Cable, Skil Bosch and Ridgid are their main Power Tool lines.

  The company is now in the hands of the second and third generation of Palumbo's. James Soss, Frank's Grandson, is the heir apparent and he has made quite a positive impact on the company.

IMMEDIATE SERVICE
  Immediate service is the key element of the Falson story. James Soss explained the need. He said, "Our average Order size is probably $100 to $200. Even our big customers break their orders up by job site so their orders end up being small too. The majority of our business is done between 6:00 am and 8:00 am. The vast majority of the stuff that goes out on the truck that day was ordered in the morning. We have to maintain an in-stock position on the Products that our Customers need." Falson is the clear leader in their market area. They enjoy an enviable reputation.

   During school, James worked part time at Falson, as did all the family members. Once he graduated from college, he had a decision to make. He had the choice of staying with the family business or going off on his own. He felt that he could make a difference by working with the family business and helping it along to the next level of performance. One major project that he directed was the choice of a new computer system to manage the growing business. Their old Accounting software did fine with the financial information, but it was no help at all in running the business. After interviewing many computer software vendors, they chose The BUSINESS EDGE from Computer Insights, Inc.

COMPUTERIZATION MEANT CHANGE
  When asked if they could envision the benefits of a new system, he said, "Everyone was sort of content with the way things were before, because the things were getting done. It could get to be a pain at the end of the month, but that was the way it was. It was the way our business ran. It was what we did. We really didn't know any better."

  "Now is the funny part, looking back at the past we realize that it was a nightmare. Diana, for example, couldn't even plan a vacation at the end of a month. Now she plans her vacations whenever she wants. People don't like change, they like things the way they are. They were a little afraid of losing control by putting in a comprehensive system. Now they are very excited about the fact that they can get the information that they need in seconds. The President got a new laptop so that he can monitor activities from his winter home in Arizona. He has more freedom and control than ever. He is able to know that while he is away, things won't get out of hand."

CHANGE CAN BE GOOD
  James went on to say "Information in general flows so much faster and easier now that we are computerized. We know up to the minute where our sales and profits are. We used to have our "end of the month crunch" to get everything done. Diana, who does the Accounts Payable, used to dread closing the month. Everybody used to have to finish all the detailed work and she would have to rush to enter it into the computer. Now the end of the month is just another day. She just loves it. Her job is a lot less stressful. She just does the same thing that she does on every other day of the month and the end of the month just takes care of itself."

EVEN MOM LIKES IT
  James was concerned about their people accepting the new system. He said, "Our sales guys and our purchasing guys were not familiar with computers at all. They adapted well. My Mom was my biggest concern. She was the last person that I would ever have expected to work on the computer. She never used a computer. Now she does all the Allocating, Invoicing, Accounts Receivable and Collections. She finds it very easy and she enjoys the control that it gives her."

NO MORE PHYSICALS
  He was surprised at how many projects have been completely eliminated. He said, "Now that we cycle count, our Accountants asked us to report to them on the accuracy of the cycle counts. They were accurate enough that they said that we do not have to do a complete inventory any longer."

WE THOUGHT THAT WE NEEDED LOCAL SERVICE
  James felt that their people would be most comfortable with a local software company. He stated, "We wanted somebody local. We were going from a small Accounting System to a full-blown Distribution System and we felt that we were going to need detailed support. Now that we have the system, we realize that we didn't actually need a local support company. Everything that we do is online, either on the telephone or online with people from Computer Insights. Looking back it wasn't important, but we didn't know any better."

EASE OF USE AND FLEXIBILITY
  James said, "We chose The BUSINESS EDGE because of the ease of use. Even though it is very complete, it is very easy to use. That was extremely important because our people just aren't all that familiar with computers. The similarity between the procedures among the various modules means that cross training is simple. It is easy for people to fill in for others that are on vacation."

  "The flexibility that is built into The BUSINESS EDGE has allowed us to make the system work the way we wanted it to work within its parameters. It is much more flexible than the other packages that we reviewed."

ELIMINATES MISTAKES ON PRODUCTS AND PRICES
  James remarked, "The system really helps us do a more effective job. For example, our biggest Vendor, Milwaukee Tools, frequently obsoletes part numbers. In the past, when a customer called me up and asked for an old Part Number that had been replaced by a new one, if I quoted him on it, and then he ordered it, I would have a problem. The new Part number was different and it may well have had a new Price. The Customer could get the impression that we were offering obsolete Parts or we were switching him to a higher priced part after he had already made his decision. Using The BUSINESS EDGE to update Product Numbers, Descriptions and Prices completely eliminates this potential problem."

  "When Milwaukee sends me a new price list on disk, I simply export all of their items from my Inventory to Excel. I Change the Product Descriptions to "Obsolete" and then I import them back in to the system. Once that is done, I import the new Part Numbers, Descriptions and Prices from the disk. If the Product is still in the new Part List, it gets its Description back along with a new Price. If it is no longer in the Part List, it shows up as Obsolete. New Parts are automatically added at the same time. We just don't make mistakes. The entire process takes me about twenty minutes. Milwaukee has 25,000 Parts. This is just one time saving example of using Excel with the system, but we use this Excel capability very often."

INDUSTRY SPECIFIC SOFTWARE REALLY HELPS
  Since they offer over 90,000 Products, they have Product Numbers, Descriptions and Prices for all of them in their Inventory Master File. Maintaining that large database and keeping it up to date is easy. Having accurate and up to the minute information helps all their people be more "expert" at what they do. James pointed out the difference between the new software and the old Accounting Software, "We used to use a generic software. It did no tracking of Inventory. One of the big changes was the Inventory, knowing who bought what products and how much. One of our Customers came to us and asked us for a breakdown of all the Products that they bought from us this year. Before we had The BUSINESS EDGE, when he asked us for that list it took us two days to put it together. This year I was able to put it together in seconds. The benefits of the Inventory System alone are huge!"

INVENTORY REDUCTION SAVES A BUNDLE
  He offered a specific example, "Our Inventory was always very high. We have to maintain stock of what our customers need. They count on us having the Inventory. They don't plan ahead. They order that morning and they need it that day. About six months ago we began examining our Inventory using The BUSINESS EDGE. We wanted to bring our Inventory down, but we can't afford to be out of stock on any of the regular Products."

  "We used the Dead Inventory Report and the Reorder Reports in The BUSINESS EDGE to determine what we should and should not be stocking. Then we began working with our Vendors and we persuaded them to take Products back and replace them with Products that are moving. Our Vendors were very cooperative. We didn't have to pay any restocking charges on any of that merchandise. We simply placed orders of comparable or greater value for Products that were moving. The entire process took about six months. We were able to reduce our Inventory from $1.1 Million to $750,000. At the same time, our service levels (our in stock position) on needed Products improved significantly."

THE OLD WAY
  "Before, we would mistakenly reorder Products that were already on Order. At the same time, we would run out of things with out realizing that we were even short. We would reorder by going out to the back with a pad of paper. We would look for Products that weren't there and what wasn't there, we'd buy. There was no way to tell if it was already on a PO or not put away yet. When we placed a PO, we would have to double check to see if it was already on order. Re-checking was error prone and time consuming and we didn't always do it."

TIME SAVINGS
  "The computer has easily saved me five hours a day. Some days it is much more than that. This morning I walked in at 6:00 am to find 27 Orders on the fax machine. I processed all of the orders in less than an hour. All the Orders went out on the truck today. In the past, I would have had to split those orders up and get the other guys to help me with them. They probably wouldn't have all gone out on the truck even with their help. In short, we are able to do a lot more with a lot less staff."