Velosio Case Study: Sutphen

Download “Sutphen: Purchasing and Manufacturing with Microsoft Dynamics AX”

About Sutphen

Sutphen, a fire apparatus manufacturer, was founded in 1890 by C.H. Sutphen, and now has four manufacturing. Sutphen produces all types of fire related vehicles on their own chassis including the usual engines, ladders, and rescues but also provides bodies for commercial chassis applications. The manufacturing company still produces midmount aerials as either a tower ladder platform (with a bucket/basket) or in a ladder tower form (no bucket) plus industrial application aerials today.

The Challenge

With an increase in customer demand, inefficient and disparate systems threatened to undermine the company’s growth. An 8-12 week time gap existed between when an order was taken, and engineering actually began, resulting in extra effort and costs incurred to make sure trucks were delivered on time. The team at Sutphen was utilizing a mix of legacy systems including a custom-developed AS 400 system and Macola. The team at Sutphen sought a unified ERP solution to address workflow, integration, inventory, and productivity issues.

The Solution

Sutphen, with the help of Velosio, rolled out Microsoft Dynamics AX to over 50 users across multiple departments. Sutphen implemented functionality to automate production, sales configuration, project management, supply chain management and financials. Velosio helped Sutphen with data conversion, setup and configuration, user training, user acceptance testing and cutover support.