Granite City Tool Gets Rock Solid Results
Granite City Tool has been a manufacturer and distributor for the stone industry since 1885 and is now in its third generation of same-family ownership. With nearly 120 years of experience in the stone tooling business their longevity can be attributed to having built a solid reputation for providing customers with high-quality products through reliable and expedient service. Headquartered in Waite Park, Minnesota, with distribution centers in the southeast and centers in the south opening soon, customers in most parts of the U.S. can receive shipments in one to two days. 
Expansion, via a company web-store, allowed Granite City Tool to become a drop ship partner with Amazon. As orders grew, so did the amount of time needed to enter the online orders into the company’s Sage Pro software system. According to Todd Wanchic, Granite City Tool’s Webmaster and IT specialist in charge of online sales, “We process 15 to 30 orders per day, which means on Mondays we could have 45-90 orders to handle. This could easily take me 2-3 hours every Monday morning, plus an hour per day the rest of the week.”
With almost an entire workday per week taken up with manual data entry, Todd knew there had to be a better way. After calls to their Pro reseller went unanswered, Todd contacted Sage directly in search of a solution. Sage, in turn, directed Todd to Business Automation Specialists of Minnesota (BASM).
According to Melissa Reichenbacher of BASM, “Granite City Tool needed an order import application written to take the web-store files and import them directly into Pro.” The BASM team met with Todd, determined the company’s needs, and provided a project plan and quote to complete the job. Granite City Tool approved the plan and BASM got to work.
Todd proclaimed, “I could tell BASM knew what they were doing. Not only do they know Sage Pro, but they know business, business processes, and how to automate those processes.” Todd continued, “Thanks to BASM, the order transfer process is now automated, and I can’t get over what I’m able to do with the time it has saved me.” Because Granite City Tool can now process orders so much faster, Todd has been able to focus on increasing the amount of drop ship traffic. “In just the first month since the order import application went live, I was able to increase stock and we went from being able to handle 500 orders per month to processing 648 orders, and I know that will continue to increase.”
Todd stated that with the time saved and increase in orders, the cost for the import tool paid for itself in just two weeks. “I’ve been at Granite City Tool for five years manually transferring orders from the web-store to Pro. I wish we had met BASM five years ago. They knew what they were doing and did what they said they would. BASM completed the project on time, on budget, and without any issues. That is unheard of these days!”
Todd and Granite City Tool are looking forward to working with BASM on their next project, an order import application for their e-commerce platform.
Business Automation Specialists only provides services and products to our clients that will offer a return on their investment. If you are interested in results like those outlined in this Success Study, we invite you to contact us today.