Summit Electric

Summit Electric Case Study

Florida Institute of Technology

Case Study Summary

Summit Electric is one of the largest wholesale distributers of electrical equipment in the United States. Summit currently employs over 500 employees. Summit Electric was founded in 1977 in Albuquerque New Mexico. Summit began growing quickly after it was founded.

Summit acts as a middleman on the manufacturing supply chain. Summit was continuing to grow and was beginning to outgrow its legacy information systems that were built in the 1980s. When Summit began looking for a new ERP system they found that many of the systems were catered towards manufacturing or retail businesses. Many of the systems did not address the complex processes required of distribution companies. Ultimately, Summit decided to use SAP. Since SAP was adapted Summit has seen a lot of improvements. One such improvement included an easier process to evaluate the profitability of its sales and sales channels. The old legacy systems summit used had separate systems for both orders and financials.

Not only did the new ERP software help make the manufacturing and distributing processes more mainstreamed. Ultimately, the software helped to create large return on investment for summit. It did this by automating sales tax processing and chargebacks. As part of the ERP solution they implemented a new paybacks and chargebacks application. The switchover from Summits legacy systems to SAPs ERP systems was overall a very effective decision. The switchover helped mainstream the processes of the company and more importantly helped create a ROI for Summit.

Important Business Processes

Summit has many important businesses processes. Since the switch over into the SAP ERP system all of the processes of the business have seen a lot of improvements. When an order is placed it’s important that the proper warehouse be notified immediately to ensure that the products are delivered in a timely...