CASE STUDY:
With sales increasing dramatically quickly, the boat company had difficulty scaling out the production process and delivering quality products due to the limitations of the hull manufacturer’s assembly teams. Finding the proper labor needed, holding the assembly tolerances, and managing parts not part of other production processes was challenging.
Orders were shipping out slowly, often with quality concerns – the fishing boat company was experiencing an alarming increase in customer dissatisfaction. This was crushing bottom-line profits and hurting their reputation.
They needed help quickly to handle a growing company, which is where Supply Source Options stepped in.
Supply Source Options leveraged its seasoned workforce, custom-built warehouse production cells, and proprietary customizable contract manufacturing software system to quickly overcome the fishing boat company’s challenges.
S2O developed a module within its production software system that utilizes an automated triple-check system that uses barcodes and sophisticated tracking to streamline incoming and outgoing inventory. This ensured product coming in and going out was correct.
S2O needed to track each component and the building process flawlessly to assemble a semi-custom boat accurately. The proprietary software and standard rigid work instructions were developed to do just that! These processes allowed for nearly unlimited, customizable options for the end user and eliminated the assembler’s need to make subjective decisions while building each boat.
With a strong labor market in West Michigan and years of production and assembly experience, S2O leveraged its existing production team and infrastructure to streamline the new project and set standards followed by every team member touching the product. The seasonality of the boat business was complementary to our current production volume so that we could get started quickly, adding additional labor when needed. Helping the sales team never to miss a sale due to lead time.
S2O has taken over the boat company’s complete assembly and fulfillment processes. We receive and manage 100+ individual inventory components, assemble each boat to the end user’s specifications, and ship orders daily. We also handle all component troubleshooting and rework, giving 100% transparent reporting to the boat company, so they understand the entire process.
The custom-built software module has reduced quality concerns completely, and customer referrals have started to pour in.
The boat company can fully understand their out-the-door labor and overhead costs per order using a per-finished-piece model for pricing.
