K&L Microwave Goes live On IFS CRM Solution

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, announced recently that K&L Microwave, a subsidiary of Dover Corporation, has gone live on the IFS Sales and Marketing customer relationship management (CRM) solution.

K&L Microwave had been running IFS Applications for enterprise resources planning (ERP) since 2002, but in November of 2006 decided they needed a system that would integrate sales, engineering and quality department activities involved in quoting. As an engineer-to-order (ETO) company, K&L Microwave had more demanding requirements that many other CRM solutions could not meet.

Quoting is a vital and complex process for K&L Microwave, as the company designs and manufactures RF and microwave filters, duplexers and subassemblies, engineering each product to the specifications of defense and homeland security and commercial customers.

According to Global Customer Service Manager Yvonne Downie, the company hoped to better facilitate engineering tasks and projects involved with quoting, and also link part numbers by government programs.

"So much of our success in securing business has to do with how quickly we can turn around a quote or a prototype," Downie said. "We want to turn quotes around within 48 hours when we can. This involves decreasing all the turnaround time associated with any task/project involved in finalizing the quote for the customer. As of this month we can track and control all of the metrics associated with turning a quote quickly. It helps in this regard that we can now see how much quoting activity each of our engineering groups are assigned at any given time so we can balance quoting against other engineering work necessary to release products to manufacturing."

Because K&L Microwave performs a significant amount of work for customers working on Department of Defense contracts, the ability to tie part numbers, estimates and opportunities to specific government programs is critical. Using IFS Workshop Tool Kit, K&L Microwave Systems Analyst Phil Shields was able to personalize the IFS solution to track government programs and relate them to part numbers, sales opportunities and other activities.

"We were able to easily add fields and tables to the various tabswithin IFS Sales and Marketing to meet our team's requirements," Shields said. "The IFS Workshop Tool Kit was very easy to use and very powerful." Leveraging customer information

"At IFS, we believe that back-office CRM -- CRM that ties sales functionality into other information from throughout the company -- is going to be attractive to many companies in the 21st Century," IFS CRM Senior Product Advisor Jorge Defreitas said. "It used to be that you did business with people you know. In the 21st Century, you do business with people who know you and leverage that knowledge to serve you better. That is what K&L is able to achieve here with their very well-planned instance of IFS Sales & Marketing."

According to K&L Microwave Sales Territory Manager Jeff Burkett, a key benefit of the new solution is increased visibility across sales and quoting functions, resulting in the ability to use existing information about customers and the government programs they are working on.

"Let's say a territory manager is working with a customer in Arizona, and we get information that suggests a different company in Massachusetts is working on the same program. They likely will need something similar to what we are working on for the company out west. We can leverage engineering time we have already invested to pursue that business," Burkett said, adding that the same information on government programs can help K&L Microwave pursue business when prime contracts change hands.

"If we are supplying parts to one of our customers and the program they are working on moves to another prime contractor, our new CRM will help us make decisions about how to handle it," Burkett said. "We now know what parts we are supplying to that program, and if we are making $5M in parts per year for the program, we can devote a different level of engineering effort to pursuing the business than if we are supplying $100,000 of parts per year for that program."

Rapid deployment

The team installed IFS Sales and Marketing at K&L Microwave in late November of 2006, and the company went live on the CRM application on January 15th. After the initial go-live, Shields led a team to design changes to handle estimating and tracking activities by government programs, and went live on the solution March 12.

More recently, K&L Microwave extended its IFS Applications functionality to communicate with their team of independent manufacturer representatives. As of mid-2007, information on customers and prospects can be exported and shared with outside sales representatives who return to K&L Microwave data that is imported to IFS Applications and used in K&L Microwave's sales forecasting efforts. Shields said that K&L Microwave will consider adding IFS Portals to allow manufacturer representatives to more directly access IFS Applications.

About K&L Microwave
K&L Microwave is a subsidiary of Dover Corporation, a $5B Fortune 400 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, recognized by top-tier defense contractors and wireless infrastructure providers as a world leader in the design and manufacture of RF and microwave filters, duplexers and integrated assemblies. K&L is ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 certified and offers customers the most extensive range of filter-based products in the industry, spanning from 0.3MHz to 94GHz.

K&L began operation over 35 years ago in a 1,400 square foot facility manufacturing custom filters primarily for the military sector. Today, with facilities in the United States, China, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom, K&L is the industry's premier filter supplier for both military and commercial markets. Over 420 employees represent the engineering, sales and marketing, manufacturing and support personnel that enable K&L to support such a broad product and customer base.

K&L designs and manufactures a full line of RF and microwave filters, mduplexers and subassemblies, including ceramic, lumped element, cavity, waveguide and tunable filters. K&L supplies many of today's most significant military and homeland security defense electronics programs.

Applications include satellite communications, radar, radio communications, fire control radars, telemetry applications, missile guidance systems, mobile radio base stations and air traffic control and communications. Commercial products include high-performance receive and transmit filters, delay line filters, duplexers and diplexers, combiners, receive multi-couplers, wireless system assemblies for base station requirements and lower-cost ceramic and lumped element parts. For more information, visit www.klmicrowave.com.

About IFS

IFS, the global enterprise applications company, provides ERP solutions that enable organizations to respond quickly to market changes. The solutions allow resources to be used in a more agile way to achieve better business performance and competitive advantage.

Founded in 1983, IFS has 2,600 employees worldwide. With IFS Applications, now in its seventh generation, IFS has pioneered component-based ERP software. The component architecture provides solutions that are easier to implement, run, and upgrade. IFS Applications is available in 54 countries in 22 languages.

IFS has more than 600,000 users across seven key vertical sectors: aerospace & defense; automotive; high-tech; industrial manufacturing; process industries; construction, contracting, service & facilities management; and utilities & telecom. IFS Applications provides extended ERP functionality, including CRM, SCM, PLM, CPM, enterprise asset management, and MRO capabilities. For more information, visit www.IFSWORLD.com.

Aerospace and defense is one of IFS' targeted market segments. IFS Applications includes advanced standard functionality that meets the demanding requirements of defense manufacturers. IFS' fully integrated project tracking and product data management (PDM) capabilities, when combined with other IFS Applications components, make it easier to operate while managing the design, manufacturing, and ongoing spare parts logistics and maintenance support of complex products throughout the product lifecycle.

IFS customers within the aerospace and defense industry include the British, Norwegian, and US defense organizations as well as the Eurofighter consortium. Commercial MRO shops and operators include Finnair, Bristow Helicopters, Aero-Dienst GmbH, Hawker Pacific, and Jet Turbine Services. In addition, IFS provides solutions to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, BAE SYSTEMS, Saab, and GE Transportation.

SOURCE: K&L Microwave