Permabond - Customisations were key for successful implementation
World-leading innovators of industrial adhesive products, Permabond Engineering Adhesives Ltd and Permabond LLC manufacture many different types of industrial adhesive products, for a variety of global industries, each with its own unique needs.
Spanning four decades and three continents, Permabond provides technological solutions to engineers all over the world, as pioneers of Anaerobics, Cyanoacrylates, Epoxies, Acrylics, MS Polymers, Modified Epoxies, UV and Polyurethane Adhesives.
The background
With separate systems for finance and inventory management, Permabond were eager to implement a solution that would consolidate all aspects of their business into a single platform. The decision to transition from Sage 50 and Factory Master+ to NetSuite was driven by the desire to have all data within one system, real-time visibility of supply and demand and, ultimately, enhance their day-to-day operations.
The project took six months from the initial scoping phase to the Go Live, with some interesting challenges along the way. These involved the customisation and automation of outgoing PDF documents to meet EU export regulations, bespoke multi-language applications for its global customer base, and unique reporting requirements to form group management reporting packages.
Permabond was a great client to work with from start to finish, fully invested in the implementation of NetSuite, with a clear understanding of the benefits this would deliver to their business.
The solution
Working with Olly Hampson from NetSuite, we identified NetSuite Manufacturing Standard as the right solution for Permabond, providing one consolidated system that would deliver full visibility and control across the purchase of raw materials to the lab, work order generation and a real-time view across operations and finance.
As world-leaders in adhesive innovation, it was essential that the system built upon, and simplified, Permabond’s core operations, as well as providing them with greater insight into income and expenditure across the business. Fine tuning NetSuite’s Material Requirements Planning (MRP) has allowed them to proactively monitor supply and demand and streamline their processes with purchase automation and suggested work order release.
Permabond also wanted a better audit trail to not only aid their finance team’s insight, but also to support their collaborative work ethic. NetSuite’s impressive drill-down functionality, custom automation and process design have enabled the free flow of information between departments and with their forever growing customer base.
We were also able to utilise NetSuite’s CRM module to track customers all the way through the sales cycle, from lead conversion to sending out samples to prospects, to new and existing business. Bespoke sales reports and dashboards were designed to provide the sales team with key data and metrics.
The results
Permabond was a great client to work with from start to finish, fully invested in the implementation of NetSuite, with a clear understanding of the benefits this would deliver to their business, in both the short and long-term. Their optimism and enthusiasm were a driving force throughout, allowing our consultants to really engage with the project team, inspiring fluid solution design.
Employee adoption of the system completely accelerated the company reaping the benefits of the system design and solutions. The team is continuously adapting and intuitively finding ways to pull key information out to inform R&D investment and decision making, as well as utilising the aforementioned automations, MRP and bespoke dashboard views on a daily basis to further drive efficiency.
What happens next
Permabond is keen to exploit all NetSuite’s capabilities to support their sales team, such as using the functionality available on a mobile device so that salespeople can access their contacts to check names, addresses and phone numbers, access their calendar to check appointments and be able to add a note against a contact.
Permabond will also join our network of managed services clients benefiting from automated updates to their system and an assigned support contact for post go-live enhancements.
Summary
Permabond had a clear vision for the project and with a dedicated resource allocated to support our team, this was a highly effective collaborative partnership. Working seamlessly with Permabond’s project team we were able to deliver the project and overcome any challenging periods of customisation and process re-design whilst still achieving the goal of an ambitious delivery date.
This was a great project for all of those involved which required bespoke and effective solution design throughout. That, accompanied with a hunger from both sides of the implementation for project success, was a powerful force and one that developed an excellent relationship with Permabond.
“Permabond are leading the way in innovation in their industry, and we were privileged to have the opportunity to be their partner and help Permabond take advantage of the world’s best cloud ERP, NetSuite. It’s extremely rewarding to see businesses embrace technology and take advantage of all the opportunities NetSuite presents and we look forward to watching Permabond thrive and working with them in the future”- Adam Johnson, Co-founder & Lead Consultant, 3RP
Testimonial
We have found 3RP to be a very responsive and accessible Business partner and have been delighted by the high level of support and guidance we have received as we have navigated our way through one of our most ambitious company projects to date. We are proud of the relationships we have built with our 3RP counterparts and look forward to maintaining these positive relationships as we move forwards together.
