The Electric Materials Company Increases On-Time Deliveries and Digitizes with PLEX ERP

A System to Support Development

The Electric Materials Company provides services to a wide array of industries around the world. With 110 years in business, the company has made a name for itself as a global leader in commutator manufacturing. The original product lines included street railway repair parts and drop forgings. Over the years, EMC expanded to a state-of-the-art, 420,000 square foot plant in North East, Pennsylvania, with advanced product lines and facilities. The team strives for continuous improvement in today’s highly competitive markets, making them a reliable and consistent partner for their customers.

With sustainable growth in mind, EMC realized that the existing system in place, implemented in 1995, no longer supported the company’s development goals. They faced significant challenges due to an outdated system that was never fully utilized, including a lack of digitization, limited plant floor visibility, and insufficient control of materials and finished goods. Trustworthy data was also hard to obtain, leaving the team heavily reliant on paper-based processes.

As the Electric Materials team looked to modernize operations, they recognized a need for a more streamlined solution to address their unique business needs. They aimed to improve overall operational efficiencies, increase access to data and reports, and find a solution that would be user-friendly for everyone, both internal and external.

The initial evaluation process was initiated by upper management and later extended to include the company’s power users, emphasizing a team-centric mentality. The decision-making process stemmed from the desire to find a solution that would address business challenges related to yield loss, remelt, actual cost tracking, and more. Additionally, there was emphasis on the adoption of a cloud-based platform following a corporate mandate that would allow the company to further align with broad organizational goals.

Plex emerged as a leading candidate, both due to its cloud-based nature and user-friendly implementation style. Upon investigation, Plex’s test environment was an additional perk as it provided the team with invaluable resources in the transition process. One EMC team member had prior knowledge of the platform and recommended Plex as a potential solution early in the evaluation process. By ultimately choosing Plex, the company was able to address immediate needs while simultaneously establishing a foundation for future growth and expansion.

Impressive Post-Implementation Improvements

Since completing the Plex adoption, the Electric Materials Company has experienced a significant transformation. From streamlined processes to enhanced visibility, the improvements seen have been both impactful and timely. Prior to the implementation, the team spent a considerable amount of time manually compiling reports and tracking finances—a process that was both time-consuming and prone to human error. Now with Plex, the same data is more easily accessible, and the team has seen a drastic reduction in the need for IT support.

Real-time data has also been particularly transformative within production control and inventory management. The ability to measure key performance indicators (KPIs) that were previously inaccessible has allowed the team to improve on-time deliveries, increasing them from around 40-50% to 60-70%. This boost is crucial for the company as it ships between 350,000 and 400,000 pounds of product each month and processes between 650,000 and 700,000. Most of this volume flows through the EMC press, making Plex’s ability to provide clear visibility into operations even more impactful. This will only continue to improve as it gets into the hands of more supervisors and management on the shop floor. Additionally, with everyone—from operators to upper management—viewing the same real-time data, employees no longer need to hunt for paperwork or rely on outdated information to stay informed.

The newfound ability to track issues and improvements through support tickets has also been a major player in the team’s success with Plex, streamlining collaboration between the shop floor and the office. Employees are now more engaged and proactive, knowing that they can easily track items that need attention. EMC has also seen improvements to its onboarding experience, with HR integrating its processes into Plex. The role-based security has made the setup of new users more efficient, further improving operational efficiency.