AstroNova Inc. | Supply Chain Excellence
Though they have applications across many industries, such as aerospace, automotive and packaging, all AstroNova Inc. products involve data visualization. The products help companies get, analyze, store and print data they need to ultimately improve their bottom line.
The 49-year-old West Warwick company adapts its highly specialized products to its clients’ needs.
For example, not just any old printer can go onboard and function well on an aircraft. Airborne printers need to be rugged and use airborne thermal paper to print things such as passenger manifests, maintenance records and weather maps. AstroNova has made a name for itself in this niche. (Airbus and Boeing are customers.)
Getting products such as airborne printers manufactured and shipped out to clients has gotten more efficient due to AstroNova’s new tech tool, with great results. According to the company, its average annual revenue growth over the past four years has been 13 percent.
About a year ago, it invested in a new Enterprise Resource Planning system, Enterprise One from Oracle.
“It’s Excel-based,” said AstroNova Corporate Purchasing Manager James McGovern, allowing for data manipulation without processing. “You can export right off the screen.”
If vendor products, or supplies the company needs in manufacturing, go out late, AstroNova knows immediately; a monthly report then shows trends so the company can pinpoint potential problem vendors and find solutions more quickly.
Another way the new system has helped AstroNova’s supply chain is when it comes to the issue of pricing the materials needed to manufacture its products.
“Costing has always been a challenge … but we can track standard costing, how they vary in price. We get a standard cost screen and can print requisitions,” said McGovern. “It shows us what we paid last time.”
Long-term component planning is also easier and quicker, he said. The system allows AstroNova to forecast out its needs and place bulk orders, minimizing the need of having to keep too much inventory on hand.
Along with tools to more accurately plan material needs, VOMI is another way AstroNova works to keep its on-hand inventory as low as possible.
Another main factor in AstroNova’s supply-chain success has been its use of vendor-owned/managed inventory, or VOMI, said McGovern. It’s a system through which a warehouse vendor gets a look ahead at what the company needs with an annual purchase order, then holds that inventory until those supplies are needed. AstroNova doesn’t pay until it actually uses those items.
“We have a warehouse here,” said McGovern, “then we have VOMI. A vendor owns it, I just take it when I need it,” he said. With the VOMI warehousing based in Rhode Island, those materials are trucked over to AstroNova when requested. The company tries to use up the supplies by the end of the year, or deduct them from the next year’s order, said McGovern.
Through VOMI, vendors also buy parts for AstroNova and keep them together as a kit for the manufacturing of certain products. It saves time and prevents the company from having to order and kit the products separately, McGovern said.
Opening the door to more-efficient supply-chain management allows the company to further focus on its customer base, such as the military, continuing to meet military standards for defense. Manufacturers, such as those in the cosmetics and food industries, are also clients in need of product identification that AstroNova provides with its TrojanLabel and QuickLabel brands. Its Test & Measurement division designs and manufactures data-acquisition equipment for the energy, pulp and paper, automobile and transportation industries, to name a few, such as data-acquisition recorders.
A recent supply challenge for AstroNova has been prompted by the increased use of sensors in cars, McGovern said, such as dashboard warning lights.
These materials to make the sensors are in high demand, he said. “It’s now harder to get those electrical components. We have to watch the market.” It is a supply-chain task made that much easier with an advanced ERP system and innovative warehousing practices securely in place.
