Case Study: Open Range RV

Bill Trail - Director of Sales

8/18/2016

Solution Source takes pride in providing custom business solutions that work. This testimonial by our client, Open Range RV, showcases how Solution Source provided the software solutions Open Range needed and has allowed the RV manufacturing company to think about longevity and focus on growth without limits.

Overview

Company: Open Range RV

Location: Shipshewana, IN

Industry: Recreational Vehicle Manufacturing

Open Range RV, now known as Highland Ridge RV, was poised to grow but was still running its operations using QuickBooks, Excel and Outlook. They looked to Solution Source for help choosing and implementing a new software system. Following its series of discovery and consulting meetings with the company, Solution Source recommended a cloud-based system and customized the software to meet Open Range RV’s special requirements.

Challenges

Open Range RV needed to compete through innovation and efficiency in the challenging RV manufacturing market. Lack of software integration among the company’s accounting, purchasing and warranty groups forced staffers to waste time and risk errors by using complicated spreadsheets. Highland Ridge had to cross-reference massive spreadsheets to create some specialized reports, such as component recalls and production tracking. Manual reporting wasn’t able to keep up with the company’s goal of producing 80 units per week, each with thousands of components and many configuration options.

Solutions

End-to-end integration now gives the company real-time, detailed views of every RV it produces, from the initial order request through to manufacturing, shipping, dealer sale, and end-user sale. Solution Source, helped Open Range RV customize a dealer self-service portal to pre-authorize warranty repairs, check status of repairs, and other functions. Solution Source helped create many specialized reports, from production tracking to warranty work and dealer sales transactions. Dealer sales tracking can alert Highland Ridge RV to a restock opportunity each time a dealer sells an Open Range RV. Future Solution Source projects include automated BOM (Bill of materials) processing and automated workflows for handling complex product change notices.

Results

Process integration and improved reporting are helping Open Range RV save more than $180,000 yearly in full-time equivalents. In the event of supplier component recalls the Open Range RV warranty department can locate each use of the component in about 10 minutes — it would have taken hours or even days of cross referencing spreadsheets. Automated reporting cuts administrative time spent processing bonus requests by two hours a month. The dealer self-service portal has helped the company reduce dealer communications overhead by 30%. Drawing up the full production schedule for a new unit now takes between one and two hours; previously it required more than a day.