Sample Projects

The Mesa Group
Business & IT Consulting

Where a hand shake still means something!

Sample Projects

Promotional Products Distributor

Problem: The Company processes a large number of direct ship orders that require the invoice to their customer to be held until confirmation of the shipment from the supplier is received. Because of the large number of orders held for invoicing, a large manual effort was required to release the orders when the confirmation was received. Over time this created a $2 - 2.5 million dollar backlog of customer invoices over 120 days old.
Solution: The Mesa Group reviewed the process then designed and implemented several procedural and technological modifications to reduce the manual intervention in the process and automate the invoice release.
Results: The Company has eliminated their backlog and increased the daily value of released invoices by an additional $60 K.

Hotel Security Solutions Provider

Problem: Our business processes were not well supported by our legacy ERP system. In order to improve productivity, planning and better management reporting we decided to make the change to a new system. After starting the project it became clear we required project management support to help us maintain focus and look after our interests during the implementation process.
Solution: We engaged Mesa group during the project as our project manager - to interface with our provider and our management team to ensure alignment on activities and time schedules.
Results: As with most major projects in the life of a business they rarely are completed exactly as planned. This implementation was no exception. However if it were not for the efforts of Mesa we would have made several costly mistakes that could potentially have derailed the project. The result is that we have successfully implemented the system we needed and are now far more effective at managing the business going forward. We surely appreciate Mesa’s experience and support through this difficult process.

Paper Company

Problem: We were being asked by a major supplier to go to EDI for all of our transactions with them. Actually, ‘forced’ would be a more accurate term to use as they informed us that if we did not comply, we would lose our 3% discount on all of our purchases. Since our purchases exceed a million dollars with them every year, this would be a substantial amount of money lost. We would have been forced to pass on the loss to our customers in the form of price increases, which would make us less competitive.
Solution: Traditional EDI set up can be prohibitively expensive for mid-sized companies like we are, so Mesa brought us a PC based version for considerably less money that did everything we needed.
Results: Our discount was saved! As usual, the Mesa personnel working on this project were professional and efficient. We keep trying to hire our main contact at Mesa, but their employees must really like working there, because she keeps turning us down!

We are currently working on a project with them to automate our credit card transactions. When completed, this should save us approximately two to three man hours per day in our main office where we manually process the transactions after the customer already has the products. We are looking forward to completing this project so that any customer service personnel at any location will be able to process the credit card before our customers take possession of the goods.

Outdoor Power Products Distributor

Problem: The distribution company processes 1,200 orders per week, and inventory control is paramount in their efforts. They needed a way to save time and improve the accuracy for these processes in the warehouse environment. The old manual effort needed to be updated utilizing the new technology that is now available to the market.
Solution: The Mesa Group, in conjunction with the software provider, made modifications to the existing software to fully implement RF devices in the warehouse. A number of RF guns and label printing devices were purchased and distributed to the warehouse personnel, which has allowed the labels to be printed as needed, wherever the transaction is taking place. This further streamlines the order processing transaction and eliminates wasted efforts.
Results: The Company has streamlined their order fulfillment and inventory processes saving the company time and improving accuracy. The new process will reduce the amount of training needed to bring new employees up to speed.

Gear and Bearing Distributor

Problem: The Company's customers were constantly price shopping the products. The existing ERP system required a sales representative to view several screens to answer customer questions and many sales were being lost.
Solution: The Mesa Group designed, developed, and implemented a process to combine various aspects of price, availability, product substitution, and order entry/quoting into a consolidated screen.
Results: The Company has significantly reduced the time required to provide customer information and increased the numbers of sales retained due to the enhanced efficiency of the process.

Firearms Distributor

Problem: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) requires a log that documents all movements of firearms.
Solution: The Mesa Group created a detailed ATF Log report to track the manufacturer, model, serial number, acquisition date, customer, license number, and disposition date of each firearm received or sold by the company.
Results: The Company was able to meet the regulatory requirements for pertinent information established by the federal government.

Tire Distributor

Problem: The Company is organized into four primary divisions. It has a 480,000 square foot mixing warehouse that contains tires from all divisions. Product must be received, put away, picked, and shipped within the same warehouse by location across all divisions.
Solution: The Mesa Group developed a series of modifications that allow a warehouse employee with little or no product experience to handle warehouse operations across all divisions. The modifications function with or without radio frequency equipment.
Results: The Company is able to efficiently and accurately process and track thousands of warehouse transactions across multiple divisions daily with far less employee training.

Vacuum Cleaner Parts Distributor

Problem: The Company processes a large volume of order that have backorder parts on them. This resulted in excess orders to manage and additional shipping costs for customers.
Solution: The Mesa Group developed and implemented an automated process that allowed sales partners to review backordered lines for a customer and cancel or move the lines forward to the current order being entered.
Results: The Company was able to continuously consolidate customer orders resulting in less management and because the backordered items now shipped as part of a current order, shipping costs were reduced. The ultimate result was reduced cost and happier customers.

Chemical Distributor

Problem: The Company employed 2½ people to handle accounts receivable and credit and were growing enough each year that the staff requirement would have continued to increase.
Solution: The Mesa Group designed, developed, and implemented an automated lockbox system which was integrated into the Company's existing ERP system.

Results: The Company was able to reassign the efforts of 1½ people from the A/R area to another department that prevented additional hiring. The Company ultimately saved more than $75 K per year while handling the increased company growth without additional hiring in the A/R area.