Vantage Industries Implements Solarsoft to Manage New Plastics Business

Vantage Industries, the coated fabrics manufacturer, has purchased Solarsoft’s iVP ERP software to manage its inventory, purchase order processes and the entire supply chain. The implementation of Solarsoft’s iVP system will also provide Vantage with full remote access, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) integration with suppliers and the ability to manage all inbound and outbound deliveries in a timely and accurate fashion.

Vantage Industries was until August 2009 a subsidiary of Leggett and Platt, a Fortune 500 diversified manufacturer of engineered products. Since this date, it has been an independent company manufacturing coated and non-slip fabrics, primarily PVC-coated polyester and EVA-coated substrates. The products are designed for a variety of commercial and residential applications and are marketed directly to retailers and distributors, and also individual consumers.

Bob Waddell, Vice President of Vantage Industries, comments, “After we established ourselves as an independent company, we needed to construct our own infrastructure from the ground up, and unite the various business functions. Solarsoft iVP will be the lifeblood of our business and the stability, security and high levels of support that come with it allow us to have complete confidence in our business processes. It is intended that Solarsoft iVP will manage our entire business from end-to-end – from the 50+ sales staff in the field having instant and secure remote access to the CRM system and quoting module, to the incoming purchase orders and EDI being balanced with our stock inventory and supply chain, right through to the picking and packaging of the outbound deliveries.”

Vantage Industries receives 40 containers of materials per month and distributes up to 20 Full-Truckload (FTL) shipments per week, alongside 30 to 50 Less-Than-Load (LTL) shipments and a continuous stream of small packages direct to customers’ homes. Tens of thousands of purchase orders and EDI messages are processed every month.

Waddell continues, “From a technical standpoint, Solarsoft iVP is an extremely robust, reliable and secure system. The remote access is very fast, and the system as a whole is quicker than many others we looked at. We visited a number of Solarsoft customer sites and the feedback we received from users was really positive. We were also able to see first-hand that Solarsoft plays a central role in underpinning the business operations of the customers we visited, which convinced us that the iVP solution would be the ideal fit for our organization.”