Effectively and efficiently managing information - from supplier inventory to projected sales - is essential to flexible manufacturing. That's where integrated software comes into play.

Due to the accelerated growth of his company over the last three years, Bill Baker, vice president of Flavor Systems International, Inc., a Cincinnati, Ohio-based manufacturer of flavorings for the food and beverage Industries, realized that a change was in order for the company's information systems. One problem was that its application systems were becoming unmanageable. "We purchased a generic accounting system that addressed the needs of a typical discrete manufacturer, but being in processing we were continually modifying the system. Even then it would still not address many of our key issues such as yield and loss factors," said Baker. "We would end up invoicing without a true picture of our costs, and that caused a lot of misinformation as well as duplication of work by making adjustments to the general ledger."

With the help of JAAS Systems, a reseller of BatchMaster/Solomon and an IBM business partner, Baker selected BatchMaster/Solomon software to manage sales and production information. Because of the seamless integration with the accounting modules, Flavor Systems has all the information from order processing to general ledger in one system, which allows them to plan their production runs more effectively. Baker cites customization manager as a unique benefit. "Instead of making costly modifications that can never be upgraded, customization manager gives us the capability to tune the system to our needs and protect our long term investment in the package," says Baker.