Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP Case Study: Vita Health Products

Founded in 1936, Vita Health is one of Canada’s largest manufacturers of natural health products and over the counter (OTC) medications. The company’s more than 500 products are available under private label or generic brands at most of Canada’s major retailers such as Wal-Mart, Costco, Loblaws and Shoppers Drug Mart.

The 1997 acquisition of Vita Health by leading U.S. vitamin and supplement supplier Leiner Health Products (Carson, CA) has strengthened its position as Canada’s leader in providing a complete line of high-quality OTC and natural health products.

Because product quality is paramount to the continued success of Vita Health, it must maintain tight inventory control over time-sensitive raw materials and finished goods. Products must be distributed well before their expiration dates, or the company risks losing customers, incurring wasted inventory costs and eroding its position in the marketplace.

The Challenge

After purchasing Stanley Pharmaceuticals (effectively doubling sales volumes and SKU counts), Vita Health realized that its aging AS/400 system couldn’t meet the company’s growing business demands. Vita Health struggled to maintain inventory control, keep product on the customer’s shelf and manage cost inputs.

Vita Health experienced these challenges:

• An aging business system

• Struggling to maintain inventory control and manage cost inputs

• Manual planning via spreadsheet due to no forecasting or MRP capabilities

Without forecasting capabilities, Vita Health was forced to carry more product inventory, thus increasing carrying costs and waste potential. Carlson Teakle, Vita Health’s Vice President of Information Technology explained, “Our old system did not provide a real MRP environment, so forecast demands and work orders were determined and managed primarily through an extensive manual analysis via spreadsheet. Once a month, we would take a snapshot of our forecast and inventory position and then we’d spend the next three weeks trying to create the appropriate work orders to meet future demand.”

Keeping track of product expiration dates was also an arduous task for Vita Health. “In order to identify a product that was nearing expiry, we would manually count inventory on our shelves and check bottles for the expiry date,” added Teakle. To trace lot information, the staff spent a significant amount of time gathering and reviewing paperwork.

Increasingly, it became more time-consuming and costly for Vita Health to meet the company’s high standards for product quality, customer service, and inventory control. To thrive, it was time for the company to change from “business as usual”.

The Solution

To address the “growing pains” of its expanding operations, Vita Health turned to Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP.

According to Teakle, “Vita Health was looking for a system that we could get up and running fairly fast, with full functionality, and local support.” Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP’s compatibility with Microsoft and SQL-based servers also were appealing to Teakle. “The Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP stood out from other solutions because of its industry-standard technology and broad compatibility that would make it easier for our users to learn and operate,” he said.

The Results

With Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP, Vita Health has significantly grown its operation in a short time. According to Teakle, “Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP has provided a very stable business platform and the tools we need to get our business under control and aggressively expand again. We have regained the credibility we lost with our customers and have seen substantial sales growth but, more importantly, we’ve seen substantial bottom-line contribution growth.”

Having a specialized and dependable system has empowered Vita Health to pursue new business while maintaining high customer loyalty levels. With Aptean, Vita Health has achieved:

• Year-over-year earnings before interests, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) increase of 93%

• Year-over-year production increase of 25%

• Year-over-year increase in job order size by 60%

By implementing Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP, Vita Health has gained more control over its inventory processes. Teakle commented “We saw that the Aptean Industrial Manufacturing ERP had the robust functionality to solve our lot control problems.”

“We can now easily identify and locate our oldest input materials and use them first in the production process—reducing inventory obsolescence and carrying costs,” Teakle continued. “In fact, overall inventory investment has remained flat while year-over-year sales have increased by 16 percent. This has resulted in finished goods inventory turns that have increased from 5.95 to 7.57.”

Aptean Manufacturing ERP: Your Prescription for Success

With robust features to streamline your end-to-end processes, from demand forecasting and production planning to quality control and KPI reporting, Aptean’s range of industry-specific manufacturing ERPs are ready to help your business drive profitability and growth.

What’s more, we also provide a range of complementary manufacturing software, including overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), product lifecycle management (PLM) and transport management software (TMS), so you can power your entire digital transformation without the hassle of working with many vendors.

And, no matter which Aptean software you choose, it’s backed by our expert in-house teams with proven experience delivering success for businesses in your industry.

To find out more about our software, get pricing for your desired system or schedule a demonstration, contact us now. We can’t wait to chat.