D&S Wire Implements AXIS ERP Solution from Consona to Streamline Facilities

INDIANAPOLIS, August 19, 2009— Consona Corporation (Consona), a worldwide leader in providing customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and services for companies of all sizes, today announced that D&S Wire, a leading manufacturer of the highest quality precision wire and bar, has launched a full implementation of the AXIS ERP solution. The choice of AXIS ERP was a fundamental ingredient in D&S Wire’s recent upgrade and restructuring of the company and its technology.

Founded in 1963, D&S Wire supplies customers who manufacture surgical instruments, dental implants, and telecommunication parts. As part of an initiative to stay on the cutting edge of technology in the wire manufacturing field, the company sought a software solution to synchronize separate systems in order to have greater access to and control of business information. After an effort to have proprietary software built for the company, D&S Wire did a full review of ERP vendors to find a solution that would meet their needs.

“In order to bring our operations up to date, we needed to bring all our inventory, ordering, accounting and quoting systems under one roof,” said Perry Koste, president of D&S Wire. “Specifically, we were looking for a fully integrated ERP system with capability for some customization from a company that is stable, continually upgrades its technology, and deeply familiar with our industry.”

D&S Wire’s search led the company to Consona’s AXIS ERP software, which satisfied its requirements for a system to exceed customers’ needs and move the company forward. The system’s meticulous record-keeping capabilities were attractive because of D&S Wire’s initiative around ISO 9000 certification, which necessitates detailed logs of an organization’s systems. In addition, AXIS ERP facilitates a high degree of lot control, enabling D&S Wire to assign material lots to specific customer orders, which is ideally suited to businesses that specialize in custom work. D&S Wire also observed that many of its business partners were already using the AXIS ERP solution to solve similar challenges.

“We interviewed a lot of ERP providers, and AXIS ERP was one of the only ones that allowed us to customize the system so that we can allocate materials for orders from the office—a level of control that is very important in our industry,” said Koste. “Another key feature was in the certification section, which cross-references specs in the system to the needs of a particular product and pre-authorizes its inclusion in an order.”

On July 1, after an initial migration period in which D&S Wire transferred its internal information into the system and a practice stage to familiarize users with its functionalities, AXIS ERP went live at the company’s facilities. “We have it all figured out now, and there’s nothing we can’t do,” said Koste. “Everything is at our fingertips—from quotation through final invoicing—and we are a lot more efficient for our customers. We have never had this degree of control or visibility.”

Moving forward, D&S Wire intends to attain ISO certification, which will benefit its medical device customers, and plans eventually to go paperless with its records within the next several years. “We invested in AXIS ERP for its speed, continuity, controls and data collection, all rolled into one piece. Now, when visiting buyers ask us questions regarding their product specifications, we are able to pull up the information immediately,” said Koste. “Implementing this solution was the final step in our plan to upgrade the company, and we believe it is an important long-term asset for us.”

“AXIS ERP is a wire industry-specific solution that integrates business processes into one streamlined system, allowing information from one department to inform decisions made in another.,” said Frank O’Nell, vice president of product management for Consona’s ERP solutions. “D&S Wire has made a clear commitment to its customers with the choice to implement AXIS ERP. As the company expands in the coming years, the control and transparency that AXIS enables will be a tremendous asset to their ongoing success and competitive advantage.”