10th December 2007
The Spring Air Company has chosen Microsoft Dynamics AX to integrate its manufacturing, distribution, financial, budgeting and procurement activities across the entire organization. The company, which manufactures premium-value bedding products sold to consumers through leading retailers, recently merged with Consolidated Bedding Inc. and has 13 facilities throughout the United States and currently employs more than 1,000 people.

Spring Air also has licensees in North and South Carolina , Michigan , Canada , Mexico , Argentina , Ireland , Australia and the Middle East .

Following the merger, the new company found itself managing six different ERP applications, none of which met the needs of a growing enterprise. Some applications did not incorporate manufacturing or financial reporting functions and did not integrate with the Microsoft Office system tools that the executive team needed. Moreover, the systems were difficult to use and the company did not own the source code, so its IT department was unable to design and implement its own changes.

“We have to be sure we can receive orders, manufacture the product, and get it to our customers on time, and Microsoft Dynamics AX 4.0 was the best ERP manufacturing application available to us,” said Paul Davis , vice president of Information Technology at Spring Air. “Overall, it matched what we needed and we liked the technology behind it. We knew Microsoft would support it long term.”

Spring Air had looked at 10 possible ERP applications, narrowing the contenders to Microsoft and Oracle J.D. Edwards & Co. More than two dozen Spring Air team members from finance, manufacturing, operations and customer relationship management were involved in the decision. Microsoft Gold Certified Partner Tribridge of Tampa was selected as the implementation partner.

Microsoft Dynamics AX is expected to benefit the company in several ways, including company wide integration, improved reporting, scalability and cost savings.