Executive Spotlight on Jim Ringland, IT Director, Langeveld Bulb Company

The days of working with a single shipping carrier are gone. In today’s world, many businesses work with two, three—even four—package delivery services.

Just ask Jim Ringland of Langeveld Bulb Company. Several years ago, Ringland, IT director at Langeveld, worked to develop functionality that allowed employees to manage UPS shipments right from his MFG/PRO system. At that time, UPS was Langevelds’ sole shipping carrier. As shipping costs started to skyrocket, the company decided the time was right to start negotiating with different carriers.

Because these package services’ systems were not integrated with Langeveld’s MFG/PRO ERP system, employees would have had to process shipment information manually—wasting time and money, and increasing the opportunity for errors.

“We couldn’t afford the inefficiencies of a carrier-provided solution, so we needed something that would allow us to manage DHL, FedEx, and UPS shipments right from within our system,” Ringland says.

But, he wanted to ensure that the integration was seamless and that his users could manage FedEx and DHL shipments the same way they handled UPS shipments. He also wanted to make sure that any new screens mirrored those that already existed in the MFG/PRO system—and that the business logic was compatible with what was already in their system.

Ringland knew he shouldn’t try to do it alone. With a lean IT department focused on keeping Langeveld running efficiently as possible, he turned to PICS for help. “We wanted to make sure we entrusted the project to someone who knew our system and our business,” he says. “We didn’t have time to manage bugs or fixes, and we knew PICS would deliver a quality product.”

PICS developed program and processes that integrated the page carrier’s Web sites and shipping management solutions with those of MFG/PRO. The project utilized standard MFG/PRO tables and routines and was developed using Ringland’s specifications. They delivered a finished product in about seven weeks. “They really cranked it out for us,” Ringland says.

The project allowed Langeveld to gauge exactly how much they were spending with different carriers, which helped them to negotiate better rates. Ringland estimates that Langeveld now saves about 18% overall on a dollar basis using the new programs. Also they experienced a significant increase in their customer service as well as a huge savings of the Langeveld employee’s time. Perhaps even more impessively, Langeveld set a single-day record with FedEx on the very first weekend after the go-live. Using the new, integrated system, Langeveld was able to ship 4,700 FedEx packages in one day.

Ringland plans to work on additional projects with PICS including an advanced shipping module that will help Langeveld manage containers. Processing Langeveld’s containers will require special rules such as capacity planning and customs documents.

“We saw incredible results, and we’re looking forward to making even more improvements,” he says. “We ship tens of thousands of packages a year, so we need to be as efficient as humanly possible.