Radio Flyer Streamlines Business Processes and Improves Customer Experience with Comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning System
 
 

Radio Flyer Streamlines Business Processes and Improves Customer Experience with Comprehensive Enterprise Resource Planning System

  • Oracle Customer:  Radio Flyer
    Location:  Chicago, Illinois
    Industry:  Consumer Goods
    Employees:  125
    Annual Revenue:  $100 to $500 Million

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Radio Flyer has been an American Classic for more than 95 years, creating a legacy of toys that continue to spark the imagination. Radio Flyer is a privately held company based in Chicago, IL, and is a leading wagon and trike maker in the industry. Since the creation of the Original Red Wagon that lent the company its name, the brand has expanded to create scooters, bikes, custom wagons, and other ride-on toys for imaginative play. Radio Flyer designs and manufactures more than 100 award-winning products, available in 25 countries.

Radio Flyer needed to replace a 15-year-old enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to support company growth. Moreover, with locations in Chicago and China, Radio Flyer sought to integrate global operations onto a single platform to unify and streamline business processes.

To meet these needs, Radio Flyer implemented Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne to increase inventory visibility and ensure access to real-time information during the order fulfillment cycle. Radio Flyer improved supply chain visibility and forecasting, allowing for a lower overall inventory investment without sacrificing customer service. Radio Flyer can now also manage business financials through automated customer and item pricing and cost reporting.

The project also enabled Radio Flyer to launch Build-A-Wagon, the first ever customizable wagon Website, enabling customers to build personalized wagons on Radio Flyer’s site which interfaces directly with the ERP system—providing faster processing, fewer manual errors, and an overall better customer experience. With JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, Radio Flyer improved customer service while providing a platform for future business growth.

 
 

 
 

Challenges

A word from Radio Flyer

  • “Radio Flyer needed a single source of truth and access to real-time order information to support growth in the consumer packaged goods industry. With Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne, we have improved supply chain visibility and forecasting, allowing for a lower overall inventory investment without sacrificing customer service.” – Tom Cesario, Chief Information Officer, Radio Flyer

  • Replace a 15-year-old ERP system with a more scalable solution that support’s the toy company’s growth
  • Integrate global operations onto a single platform to unify and streamline supply chain management processes
  • Provide full-cycle supply chain visibility into a third-party and contract-manufacturing-based business model
  • Automate financial drill-down and cost center reporting, while reducing the number of product stock-keeping units (SKUs)
  • Access real-time order information and inventory during the fulfillment cycle

Solutions

Oracle Product and Services

  • Implemented Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne 9.0 to create global supply chain visibility to support operations in Chicago and China, eliminating Microsoft Excel planning spreadsheets and instead utilizing Oracle’s rough cut capacity planning, master production scheduling, material resource planning, and advanced forecasting capabilities
  • Deployed Oracle’s Demantra Demand Management, enabling best-of-breed operations and sales forecasting and forecast consumption, leading to improved business revenue and inventory planning
  • Enabled Radio Flyer to assign different costs by facility, allowing it to reduce the number of product SKU’s for better visibility and planning, as well as a 5% inventory reduction
  • Provided inventory visibility across the supply chain, enabling lower overall inventory investment without sacrificing customer service and lead times
  • Used JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Requirements Planning to enable companywide replenishment planning, including contract manufacturing sites and enabling end-to-end supply chain visibility to better manage inventory and spend
  • Used JD Edwards EnterpriseOne Financials to automate financial management activities, providing daily financial drill-down reports, while reducing the headcount needed to generate the reports
  • Enabled significant electronic data interchange and end-customer-based automation—lowering transaction costs and moving toward 95% automated orders
  • Created Build-A-Wagon, the first ever customizable wagon Website, enabling customers to build personalized wagons on Radio Flyer’s Website, which interfaces directly with JD Edwards—providing faster processing, fewer manual errors, and an overall better customer experience
  • Automated customer and item pricing and cost reporting to improve financial management and provide rationale for pricing and product costs
  • Gained ability to query real-time order information through the fulfillment cycle

Why Oracle

Oracle provides a direct match to Radio Flyer’s business requirements. Radio Flyer selected Oracle for its total cost of ownership and continuous support, and with Oracle, Radio Flyer has already automated many business processes and improved visibility into customer order status.

Implementation Process

Radio Flyer went live on Oracle’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne system in September 2011. The implementation took 11 months and was on time and on budget. Today, Radio Flyer has rolled out the system to 30 business users across its supply chain, operations, finance, sales, and product development.

Partner

Radio Flyer worked with Oracle Platinum Partner Terillium, an Oracle Accelerate solution provider, as it has vast JD Edwards knowledge and the ability to deliver results. Terillium implemented the system using its Oracle Accelerate solution for JD Edwards Enterprise One, which delivered a single, complete data model with pre-integrated applications and a standard toolset based foundation with no synchronization or replication needed.

“Terillium’s JD Edwards EnterpriseOne implementation enabled our business transformation and produced substantial business benefits. The highly-experienced Terillium team exceeded our expectations, while delivering our project on time and on budget,” said Tom Cesario, chief information officer, Radio Flyer.