Merritt Trailers Inc.

The Company: About Merritt Trailers Inc.

Established in 1951, Merritt Trailers, Inc. and sister company Merritt Aluminum Products manufacture market-leading livestock and commodity trailers as well as aluminum parts and accessories for the trailer/trucking industry. The company grew its business reach throughout the U.S. and Canada and today continues to offer world-class trailer and related aluminum parts manufacturing, superior service, and access to its products via a wide dealer network.

The Situation: Customize Orders

Merritt’s need to digitally transform was accelerated to meet the needs of a changing customer-preference world. With its existing solution unable to adapt, Merritt required a technology solution that was tightly integrated with its business plans to customize orders and handle tens of thousands of parts rather than hundreds of parts as in the past.

The Solution: SYSPRO ERP

Merritt uses a full suite of SYSPRO 8 applications spanning financial modules, Bill of Materials, Quotations & Estimates, Requirements Planning, Factory Documentation, Lot Traceability, Product Configurator, Forecasting, and Reporting.

The Results: SYSPRO ERP Implementation Benefits

SYSPRO met Merritt’s digital transformation customization and market growth requirements. Importantly, it was easy to learn and use, which helped employees adapt to the new system. In addition, SYSPRO delivered the flexibility needed to support future growth and innovation.

Reaping the Digital Rewards
SYSPRO’s ability to enable customization by keeping track of quantities of materials has given Merritt full visibility of its organization. This has shortened development time and enhanced operational efficiency across the two companies with their different brands and manufacturing philosophies.

Based on a combination of a great user interface and the system’s ability to interface with other Merritt solutions easily, processes and reports that once took a week or more to complete are now executed in five minutes or less. Even though the company is facing competitive challenges from a much larger industry
players, Merritt is maintaining both profitability and market leadership.

Through SYSPRO, Merritt was able to implement a warehouse slotting process, reducing the time taken to organize inventory in the warehouse or distribution center by 90%. Operational efficiencies were also achieved; for example, the automation of serial numbers reduced production time from a matter of hours to minutes. 

SYSPRO has therefore played a significant role in Merritt’s ability to achieve its digital innovation goals, which focus on increasing revenue and saving both money and resources. 

With the aim of distributing products through digital channels, Merritt will make the shift to place its products on an e‑commerce site with a built-in configurator. This will reduce costs and take Merritt’s business model regarding customized services to the next level by giving customers the opportunity to configure their own products online.