Patlon provides distribution, manufacturing and repair and overhaul services within the commercial aerospace, military, and government sectors. The company is ISO 9001:2000 certified. They operate a 38,000 sq ft. facility in Halton Hills, Ontario.

Patlon’s business has been growing steadily over the past ten years. This growth has not been without its challenges. Over time, they have grown the number of services that they offer so that today they are a contract manufacturer, a distributor of a large number of specialty products, a repair vendor for a large number of specialty products, and a vendor that provides calibration services on specific product lines. The computer system that they were running was built in the late 1980s and early 1990s on a UNIX platform. It was no longer capable of cost-effectively keeping up with the changing nature of Patlon’s business and it was deficient is managing the competing nature of the simultaneous manufacturing, distribution, and repair businesses. It was not capable of handling more than two currencies while Patlon’s business involved buying and selling in up to five currencies.

It was in need of replacement by a system that would address Patlon’s specific needs.

Any off-the-shelf solution that would have been considered as a replacement would have required massive customizations to make it work for Patlon. This had been their experience 15 years earlier with their UNIX system which is why it was a custom solution. The stakeholders decided that a custom software solution would be the only way to effectively deliver the required functionality and flexibility to adapt to changes in the future. Over a period of one year, a new software solution called recon was designed and developed in accordance with Patlon’s specifications. It was built as a complete solution that covers all areas of the business:

• Accounting (Multi-Currency)
• Customer RFQ/Quotation/Order/Invoice Entry
• Vendor Inquiry/Purchase Order/Invoice Entry
• Inventory
• Warehouse
• Repair
• Calibration
• Manufacturing
• ISO 9001:2000
• Registration Programs (CGRP, CNSC, etc.)
• Contracts (Government and Commercial)

Some of the special features that were built to streamline operations:

Integrated email and fax to support sending quotations, order acknowledgements, invoices, vendor inquiries, and purchase orders directly as an attached PDF.

Automated purchase order generation that accounts for demand from all areas: customer orders, repair orders and manufacturing orders.

Integrated supplier price lists with break points to support costing for quotations, and purchasing activities.

Adherence to reporting requirements for Canadian Government National Individual Standing Offer (NISO) contracts.

Between the recon software and changes to business processes, there have been great improvements in Patlon’s business, namely:

• Increased inventory accuracy and visibility
• Improved turnaround time for repairs
• Increased profitability
• Cost reductions through improved processes
• More effective management reporting
• Reduction in manual labour across all departments
  

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