Rama Carpets: Leading UK Carpet Supplier Automates Business with SAP Business One
Rama selected SAP Business One, Boyum’s B1 Usability Package, Business Process Automation (BPA) and Codescan for warehouse operations.
The Client
About
Rama Carpets
Based in London, the family-owned Rama Carpets has grown since 1965 to become a leading supplier of rugs and carpets in the UK, with a reputation for high quality and service.
Rama offers a comprehensive range of hand-woven, hand tufted and power loomed rugs & carpets meeting the demands of an ever-changing market. Its partnership with Nourison USA enables it to offer its customers a large selection of programmed area rug and broadloom carpet collections.
Understanding the Problem
The Challenge
Rama had outgrown its previous business support systems, which required significant manual effort by its users to carry out simple tasks such as entering customer orders.
Approximately 300 orders a day were manually entered to spreadsheets, with the associated data keying error risks.
There was little integration of Rama’s internal systems with customers’ infrastructure, preventing Rama from taking advantage of electronic data exchange, such as sales order automation or e-invoicing.
Business functions operated in silos, with low levels of integration between sales, purchasing, finance, and warehouse functions.
To maintain service levels and achieve its growth targets, Rama needed an integrated, well-supported ERP system that would provide a platform for savings and growth.
The Solution
Making it Work
Rama selected SAP Business One, Boyum’s B1 Usability Package, Business Process Automation (BPA) and Codescan for warehouse operations. The solution was chosen as Rama required a system that would enable them to automate incoming customer orders through NetEDI interfaces and alleviate pressure on its sales department. As a SAP Gold Partner with a reputation for helping organisations reach their full potential, Codestone was selected to manage the implementation.
Whilst the pre-existing system was manually intensive and prone to user data entry error, it supported a workable set of business processes, and these were used as the basis for design of the new system. This led to some complexities in configuring SAP and getting the implementation completed. Working closely together, the decision was taken to go live and operate the business using going forward SAP. Codestone has assisted Rama to develop ways of working that take advantage of the new solution’s capabilities.
Customer ordering is now integrated with Sales through NetEDI, allowing Rama’s commercial customers to place orders with them directly into SAP B1. The sales process is largely automated, with these orders driving warehouse and distribution activities, without the labour-intensive and error-prone processes previously in place. production orders, and inventory transfer requests, from the creation of pick lists up to packing items for shipment with delivery documents.
The reporting capabilities of SAP B1 are a significant step up from what was available previously, bringing real-time information to Rama’s decision making. Finance staff are now able to design their own queries to interrogate the database, replacing cumbersome SQL scripts.
SAP B1 brings benefits of an industry leading organisation, and with Codestone’s support, the business will be placed to gain from future releases of the software.
Rama is already planning to integrate SAP B1 with the organisation’s web site, which will enable customers to access its live stock system. Further automation is in the pipeline, extending the support warehouse functions to include automatic printing of despatch labels, driven by courier selection.
With this integration in place, we are much better placed to cope with increased levels of business.Accounts Manager, Rama Carpets
SAP Business One
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Discover the Benefits
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Rama customers are now able to submit orders directly to SAP B1 via NetEDI.
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Warehouse and despatch processes at Rama have been significantly streamlined through automation.
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Decision making at Rama is now enhanced with easy-to-use real-time query capabilities.
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SAP B1 has opened up future automation possibilities, increasing the efficiency of Rama’s despatch processes.
Codestone has helped us through a challenging implementation and we are now beginning to realise the benefits of the new system. We are very happy with the support they have provided.Accounts Manager at Rama Carpets