For over 30 years, FairfieldNodal has been the leader in manufacturing ocean bottom seismic nodal systems for oil and gas reserves. They are committed to bringing their customers acquisition tools, processing services, and licensing solutions to meet seismic challenges with “speed, accuracy and efficiency.” In order to continue to bring the best product to market in a cost-conscientious environment, FairfieldNodal knew they needed the same speed, accuracy and efficiency in their technology systems.
Knowing it would be more cost productive to consolidate systems to one platform (and that they wanted to move the Cloud), the FairfieldNodal team chose Oracle Cloud SCM as their ERP solution. “It turned out to be the right solution. It could do what we needed and then some,” said Brian Vogt, Director of Information Services.
A Solid Partnership
“We knew we had a gap in our supply chain management solution, and the functionality of RF-SMART fills in that gap,” said Alistair Pereira, Director of Customer Experience. They were impressed with the functionality and knew it could perform, but there were still some concerns among team members. “We were apprehensive to bring in a 3rd party solution that was different than Oracle because it would be another system to manage,” Alistair said. “But RF-SMART works directly with Oracle, and that worry was eliminated during implementation. As it turned out, RF-SMART was the easiest part of our implementation.”
An easy implementation was just the beginning. FairfieldNodal uses RF-SMART for inventory management in their stock room. Through transactions such as Receiving and Putaway, FairfieldNodal scans receipts, distributes them to the appropriate rack and bin, and prints the appropriate label - all while seamlessly integrating to Oracle Cloud SCM. The simple and intuitive interface minimized the number of data capture fields, resulting in streamlined transaction times.
Easier, Faster and Better
FairfieldNodal has experienced a wave of benefits since implementing RF-SMART. “Before, our processes were paper-based and very manual. RF-SMART makes everything easier, faster and better,” said Brian.
Errors associated with paper-processes have been eliminated, and workers are no longer doing double the work by entering manual data into a PC hours later. “We had a variety of errors previously. But by being able to pick and immediately issue those parts to a work order in real-time, we’ve eliminated the mistakes,” Brian said. “Real-time information is crucial because we batch build, so knowing when and how many finished goods will come off the line is essential. Whereas we had work-in-progress movements before, we now have real-time information from receiving to manufacturing.”
The most measurable benefits though? Cycle counts and inventory accuracy. “Cycle counts are much faster with RF-SMART, by as much as 50%. Now they are updated and validated immediately,” explains Brian. “With the cleaner interface of RF-SMART, it’s been a big time saver.”
Another advantage is in their inventory accuracy. “We never had 100% inventory accuracy. We over-issued too much to stock to work orders as well as over-ordered items. As a result, we had a lot of inventory that we could do nothing with. With RF-SMART, we know where stuff is, when and how – all of the time,” said Brian.
“We recommend RF-SMART to others, even if they’re not using Oracle Cloud SCM,” said Alistair. “We think that highly of RF-SMART. We tell any company that needs a barcoding solution to select RF-SMART.”