Case: Hannibal Industries – fast solution for confident product configuration

Founded in 1985, Hannibal Industries is a leading pallet rack and steel tube manufacturer that employs around 400 people at its plants in Los Angeles and Houston. To create unique solutions based on customers’ requirements, Hannibal used a configurator that had been developed in-house and integrated with the company’s Microsoft Dynamics AX enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. But after the employee who created the configurator left the company, maintenance and improvement became a challenge. In addition, creating and printing CAD drawings throughout the process was a time-consuming process that opened the door for potential error, as the production department was not always aware of changes made since a drawing was received.

Hannibal Industries’ design department was burdened and needed a configuration module. They were seeking a solution built inside the Dynamics 365/AX ERP platform, thus making it easy to seamlessly bridge the flow of data between engineering and operations. And they needed a system quickly onboard. They turned to the Bluestar PLM configurator and got a configurator that is, according to the company itself, both stable and easy to work with. Also, the company values the functionality of PLM configurator being able to create drawings. Implementation was a quick process, it took only 2,5 months from the decision was made until the module was in operation and successfully functioning.

Hannibal is currently in the process of transitioning from Dynamics AX 2009 to Dynamics 365. And having implemented Bluestar PLM in their Houston facility, their department in Los Angeles is next in line and this time more advanced features of Bluestar, such as engineering/production change management features will be included.