UEA

About United Equipment Accessories, Inc.
United Equipment Accessories, Inc. (UEA) has grown from a small manufacturer in the 1950s, operating out of Vern Iserman’s garage, to a preferred provider of quality custom components for motion applications. Their products include slip rings, cable reels, shift quadrants, and hydraulic swivels. Along the way, the family-owned company has built a reputation for quality product development and exceptional customer service.

When UEA implemented a new business management system in 2014, the company approached the project in the same way that they approach the product development process. The 65-year-old ISO 9001-certified company reviewed internal processes, set best practices, and evaluated each tool and service to determine its value.

UEA previously had two systems. Transferring data between them, a lack of customer service, and insufficient capabilities in the systems were not meeting the company’s needs. Data mining was particularly arduous and required custom reports.

“In the past, the natural inclination was to customize. The easiest thing to do was to hand off the requirement to IT,” says Systems Analyst and ERP Administrator Howard Samarin. UEA’s process now is to require users to justify, with business cases, the need for any modification. The idea is not necessarily to reduce modifications, but rather to lead to better decisions regarding the software. UEA’s new development process has led to both.

Using the same type of process, UEA evaluated the modules and features of their new ERP system, Infor SyteLine ERP (now known as “CloudSuite Industrial”). In the end, they implemented not only the majority of core SyteLine features but determined specific functional areas in which to focus their resources.

One important process which UEA’s management team focused on was the process of quoting new customer orders. UEA chose to implement SyteLine’s Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) functionality in order to shorten quote lead times and improve the accuracy of delivery date promises. With APS implemented, UEA customer service and sales employees can now get a real-time view of when the product can actually be delivered while creating a quote or order for a customer. Accurate inventory, lead-time, and routing information is critical for APS to work – and UEA has done a good job from the beginning, planning and implementing how data will be managed.

More recently, UEA recognized the need for better high-level business intelligence and chose to implement CyberQuery. This product is now allowing them to make better, timelier, strategic decisions – particularly regarding what items to stock and when.

UEA’s most recent addition to their product line has been hydraulic swivels for a variety of mobile equipment industries. They also supply slip rings for wind turbines. As wind becomes big business, especially overseas, UEA sees tremendous opportunity in the market. As the company continues to grow, they expect to be evaluating and implementing more features of their existing SyteLine system – and Decision Resources is looking forward to working with them through every step.

United Equipment Accessories can be found online at http://www.uea-inc.com/