Summary

Lassonde Pappas successfully upgraded from QAD 2008 SE to QAD 2022 EE with Logan Consulting providing business process, QAD, and project management expertise.

The Client

Lassonde Pappas is a North American leader in beverage manufacturing. The company’s US operations consist of five internal manufacturing sites in New Jersey, North Carolina, California, Michigan and Arkansas. In addition, Lassonde Pappas has a significant external co-packing network across North America.

The Opportunity

Lassonde Pappas was running a heavily customized version of QAD’s 2008 SE that was beginning to impede the company’s ability to grow per its strategic plans. Additionally, many of its long-term employees were retiring, leaving it with a gap in system knowledge. Lastly, it had an eleven-month window to execute this upgrade that it had to hit. Therefore, there was little room for error.

Lassonde Pappas engaged Logan Consulting to manage the project and implement QAD EE 2022EE, working together with its business leaders and a project team of various subject matter experts.

The Solution

Logan Consulting and the client developed a strong partnership throughout the implementation project that kicked-off in September of 2023 and culminated with going live in July of 2024. A common process model, leveraging industry best practices and standard QAD functionality, was developed to support Lassonde Pappas’s businesses.

The basic components of the implementation that were new for Lassonde Pappas consisted of the following:

· QAD 2022EE Financials to replace old SE Financials with Chart of Account updates and historical trial balances converted

· QAD’s Accounts Receivable module interfaced to 3rd party cash application system

· Improved Domain/Entity configuration to provide the business with best reporting breakout by key business unit

· Significant data cleansing and purging was completed as part of conversion on the operational data

· Process flows, narratives, and procedure work aids were provided for all processes including custom processes, such as commissions and incentives

· QAD’s Configured Screens were utilized to eliminate custom versions of key maintenance screens

· Financial Report Writer (FRW) was utilized to build many of the key financial reports needed

· The QAD Budgeting module was implemented to store financial budgets and allow FRW report to compare against actuals.

· Supplier price lists were introduced and implemented to replace a custom pricing processes for certain key ingredient suppliers

· QAD Reporting Framework (QRF) was utilized to build all forms that were originally set up in Optio

From a manufacturing and inventory control perspective, due to the highly customized processes that had been in use and the aggressive timeline, the decision was made to convert all the custom programs that had been used in the near term. This volume of programs and all corresponding browses that were used forced an additional testing cycle to extract and document those processes.

The key components of base QAD from a manufacturing and inventory control that were incorporated consisted of the following:

· Work Orders (discrete)

· Production planning was interfaced from 3rd party Supply Planning application

· Purchasing – discrete orders, blanket orders and releasing from blanket orders

· Customer Best Pricing

· Freight Charges

· Distribution Resource Planning (DRP)

· Standard shipping (custom front end)

· Production Reporting based on home-grown RF system that loads into standard Work Order screens, such as Work Order Component Issue and Work Order Receipt

The Results

By implementing QAD EA 2022EE, Lassonde Pappas was able to recognize the following results and benefits:

· Eliminate the risk of old hardware and software failure, a key concern and project driver for the company

· Created a documentation repository for all processes

· Improved financial tools and reporting to reconcile sub-ledgers and troubleshoot transactions potentially in error

· Improved user response times due to better hardware and elimination of old data that needed purged

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