A&J Manufacturing Company Testimonial

A&J Manufacturing Company is a family-owned machine shop that primarily makes racks for Navy ships. In order to move the racks easily around the narrow spaces in ships, no parts are welded; they’re all held together with screws. Finding solutions to tough problems is in the shop’s DNA. So, when they realized their ERP system wasn’t working for them, they started looking. They had a partially-implemented ERP system that was not doing much for their shop. They were doing all the work manually and then putting it in the ERP system after it was done. Barry Lyerly, President, shared, “When I came on board, I couldn’t believe everything was done manually.” Finding current and correct data was a headache and trying to make a report from that data was frustrating. It was time for a change. At the end of 2019, they bought the E2 Shop System and began implementing it, in earnest, in 2020.

Since they were coming from a manual system before, they knew it would take a while to put all of their information into the new system. In addition to that, they didn’t want to bring over anything that they wouldn’t use anymore. As Barry said, “We have a lot of different parts that we manufacture for our racks so there’s a lot of part numbers. Being in business so long and all these various racks we’ve made, we had like 20,000 part numbers in our old system and we didn’t want to put them in there if we weren’t utilizing them. So, it’s been a process.” That process has been made easier because of the people at Shoptech. A&J Manufacturing Company has been working with a great trainer and finding excellent support from the general support line as well. As Barry said, “I think you guys probably have some of the best support systems out there. The trainer who’s been out, she’s always told us we can call her, but usually we just call the 800 number and get answers right then and there and it works out great.” Getting answers to their questions quickly helped keep them on track while getting E2 SHOP implemented.

Once they started using E2 in their shop, A&J Manufacturing was glad to see the change. As Barry shared, “We’re happy with the system. It works great with our size company and pretty much does everything we need it to do.” E2 SHOP wasn’t too much for their small shop, and it also wasn’t too little for what they needed it to do. Everyone in the shop has enjoyed it, but the accountants have seen some of the most dramatic changes. As Barry said, “I know our accountants were happy when we moved over to this because we can get reports much easier now when we need to.” Unlike their old, mostly manual system, all the information they need is in E2 SHOP, and it’s easy to find. They can also create reports with just a few clicks. Creating reports and similar actions take far less time, leaving the accountants more time for the important work.

Barry and the whole crew at A&J Manufacturing Company have come a long way since their manual system. Now they’re able to track all of their labor, quoting, orders, purchasing, and more. Their company was growing before they implemented E2 SHOP, but now they can see exactly how it’s growing, and which jobs are having the biggest impact. As Barry said, “It’s a big improvement from what we were doing.” As they add the finishing touches to their use of E2 SHOP, Barry is confident running the shop will be even easier. As he shared, “Next year it’ll be great. We’ll be able to look at shop floor control and run reports on that, which will be nice to streamline or make things more efficient.” They’re looking forward to making their shop more efficient and better able to serve their customers and Shoptech is looking forward to being with them every step of the way.