CASE STUDY
Crane Electronics Group
Migration from Sage 1000 to Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium
Who are Crane Electronics Group
Established in 1971, Crane Electronics has been delivering solutions for torque management and control problems for over 50 years.
After starting out as a small UK-based company, Crane has grown into a truly global company, with distributors based on every continent of the world. Crane’s head office, Crane Electronics Ltd. is based in the UK, with its sister company, Crane Electronics Inc. located in Illinois, USA. Both locations have their own accredited service and calibration centres, and our experienced teams provide technical advice, high-quality support and a dedicated service to our customers and distributors.
In 2009, Task Engineering, a precision engineers with over 20 years’ experience, serving a variety of industries, became part of the Crane group of companies. Its customer base remains far reaching including the mobile phone security industry, classic motor racing and the general automotive and electronics industries.
The challenge
Following the discontinuation of Sage 1000, Crane needed to review the marketplace for an alternative ERP, that would not just serve the needs of Crane and Task but Crane inc and future planned international expansions.
Crane’s long standing Sage Business Partner put forward Sage 200 for consideration. Crane Inc had been using NAV since 2013 (NAV is now Business Central) thus there was sense to include Business Central in the wider industry review for a possible replacement solution.
Any new solution Crane implemented had to provide full financials, manufacturing, SFDC to provide real time visibility of production processes, service capabilities, be technically robust and modern and have the vendors commitment to a strong, ongoing development roadmap. A new solution would also need the capability of adding international companies within the Crane group to the Crane UK central system, serving as Head Office, whilst fully meeting tax regulations of that non-UK country.
Any business partner would need to be able to provide a full and detailed data migration from Sage 1000, evidence impressive knowledge of manufacturing processes and provide complete assurance that training would be effective and empathetic. A commitment to moving to a new ERP is a serious one for any business and Crane needed to be diligent in its assessment of the marketplace over vendors, business partners and their technical expertise, approachability and ‘fit’ for the Crane Group.
The solutionMigration from Sage 1000 to Dynamics 365 Business Central Premium
Crane evaluated their shortlisted ERP solutions carefully and thoroughly and finally opted to migrate to Business Central. Unlike Sage 200 which relies on a 3rd party MRP for its manufacturing capabilities which in turn limits its Cloud capabilities – Business Central runs from a single SQL database and does not require any server. Business Central also offers compliance in over 90 countries. Business Central ‘localisations’ ensure legal requirements and business practices are met.
Qi had proved themselves to be a knowledgeable, empathetic, and flexible business partner supporting the evaluation process with a full solution overview on site accompanied with some set up of actual Crane data to help prove the concept and for Crane staff to better visualise how Business Central might serve not only the business but them as users.
The Process
Qi initially completed a migration from an alternative email provider to Microsoft Office 365 to support the integration between Microsoft Office 365 and its apps and Business Central.
Complete and accurate data migration was completed for Crane from Sage 1000 to Business Central with full testing and validation.
This tested and validated migrated data set was installed to a test company for staff training. Training was delivered in person, via Teams, and deploying learning through doing workshops, supported by training videos.
Qi ensured that Crane considered licence types for their Business Central portfolio ensuring that licensing costs were cost effective.
Following the go live of Crane, Task data was then migrated, and any gap fill training delivered.
Qi will be ready to support Crane in setting up future international Crane companies as the group continues to grow.
The outcome
Business Central fully supports growth of the Crane Group structure
Business Central ensures that Crane HQ, Senior Management can report effectively across the group.
Authorised staff can work across multiple companies within the group, seamlessly.
Shop Floor Data collection is providing real time data on operation times, tracking jobs through production providing immediate insights into potential issues which may impact their customers or their bottom line.
Business Central as a modern Cloud ERP, is supporting and will continue to support the Crane Group as it continues to grow and diversify. Qi will continue to partner with the Crane Group to ensure the system returns optimal performance as needs across the change.
We spent over 6 months evaluating the marketplace and took time to make sure we were moving not only to the best software solution for us but that we were making that move with a business partner we could trust and one we could build a good relationship with. We have not been disappointed. We feel we made the right decision!