What started out in 1962 as Roy W. Bierschwale's small retail store and lumber shed has now grown into Bison Building Materials, Ltd., a complete millwork and lumber distribution business and one of the largest suppliers in Texas serving residential construction.
Today, the Houston-based company operates eleven divisions in three states, providing construction packages ranging from form lumber to roof decking, as well as a wide range of commodity doors, columns, cabinet doors, molding, plywood and stair parts.
Over the last 40 years, Bison Building Materials has watched its customer base evolve from smaller custom home builders who lack electronic integration, to larger, national production builders with high degree of technical sophistication. To respond to its customers' changing requirements, Bison needed to provide a seamless integration of customer and vendor information into one complete package.
Finding a flexible solution
To do this, Bison began searching for an integrated application to upgrade its legacy application. The company -- a longtime Activant customer since 1988 -- looked at a number of different solutions before recommitting to Activant and the Activant Falcon ™ system.
"The Falcon package was tailored to the building materials industry and addressed issues that other products did not," explains Pat Bierschwale, Bison's president. "We really liked the distribution capabilities as well as the millwork package where products are defined and built using system prompts. It then calculates cost and selling price for the finished products."
Moreover, by using the millwork's predefined descriptions, Bison can maintain uniform and consistent terminology on shop orders. "(Falcon) offered us a lot of flexibility," says Bierschwale.
With Falcon's remanufacturing module, Bison can track and manage inventory for two separate business functions, while keeping them under one virtual warehouse. "One location serves as the vendor and sales center," explains Ken Ryan, Bison's Information Systems Specialist. "And the other is a manufacturer of spec-built product using the material it receives from the (first location). This ups the turns on product movement and lowers our costs from our suppliers."
Seamless integration increases productivity
Falcon's ability to flawlessly integrate with the house design and engineering packages that Bison uses, saves time and money, while reducing errors. Once the product requirements are determined in the design phase of a house, the information is integrated into the Falcon's order entry system. The transactions create general ledger entries so that the movement and costs of the materials are tracked correctly. The benefit, notes Bierschwale, is that data is only entered once and tasks are not duplicated. "You've eliminated the opportunity for error. This has certainly increased our productivity."
Adds Don Erland, Bison's IS manager, "Falcon's help screens assist in order entry and the system walks you through the correct procedure. That alone has helped the productivity of our users."
Custom functionality through advanced technology
In addition to complete integration, Bison is reaping the benefits of Falcon's custom functionality. "You can provide access on any number of levels, including user programs and even custom menus," explains Bierschwale. "The security feature eliminates people from wandering into areas where they don't belong and it keeps them focused on what they should be doing.
"We also use options to set default user parameters such as Entered by Code, printer settings, and to dictate individual order entry behavior," he continues. "And we can set how the system flows in all modules, such as Order Entry, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Inventory and Purchasing."
A solid commitment to your industry
For Bison, after 14 years, the choice to remain with Activant was simple. "We weren't switching vendors -- that was a big plus," notes Bierschwale. "There are other firms who offer integrated accounting and distribution packages, but Falcon is constructed with our business in mind. Activant understands the problems associated with the lumber and building materials business and the terms specific to our industry. Activant is forward-thinking, and I appreciate that they ask us where the development process needs to be taken."
