Business Consolidation

The Stephens Group assisted a $2 billion plus division of a Fortune 500 personal products and food products company with the integration of multiple inventory control and accounting systems.  The company had developed, or inherited from acquisitions, multiple custom inventory systems for control of raw materials, different stages of in-process inventories and 2 finished goods/warehouse management systems.  The accounts payable and general ledger systems were purchased packages and the cost management system was custom developed.  The warehouse management systems had separate and unintegrated locator systems.  There were 11 applications that required integration and they resided on 4 different platforms/technologies.  Some applications were batch and some applications were real time.
The Stephens Group lead a consolidation project in which we planned and coordinated the efforts of the different development groups with the Division Controllers and their staffs.  We performed the analysis of the applications, developed specifications for the changes, developed/changed reports to include missing transactions and/or controls, tested the changes and reviewed test results with developers and users.
At the conclusion of the project we achieved the following:

• All applications were integrated, across multiple platforms.  Specifically all inventory systems were integrated to the Accounts Payable, General Ledger and Cost Management Systems.  Interfaces between inventory systems were developed where needed.
  
• All previously missing transactions were in place.
  
• Edits and controls were improved and reconciliation reports were developed.
  
• The reconciliation group was reduced to 2 people who used reports and inquiries to validate balances and locations of inventory.  An automated in-transit inventory system was implemented.
  
• Inventory valuations were based on specific sku data, not averages.