Pelco Grows High-Value Jobs & Gains Competitive Edge using xTuple

In 1975, Pelco was founded in the village of Cazenovia in Madison County, New York*, by Peter M. Kip, Sr. With the long-term goal of continued innovation and growth while “doing good” by maintaining production locally, Kip, Sr., wanted to provide good, sustainable jobs for his neighbors.

Today’s president and CEO, Peter M. Kip, Jr., wanted to carry on his father’s legacy, building on the business mission to improve the local community’s economic development. Eventually, though, business realities made some overseas production inevitable.

And there were other constraints.

Pelco’s future business growth and efficiency was hampered by technology. The major driver for adopting a fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution was the company’s historical use of three (3) different and separate systems: a standalone customer relationship management (CRM) software, an accounting package, and a locally designed “MRP-ish” (materials requirement planning) solution.

“It was inefficient. It was a nightmare,” said Kip.

It became eminently apparent that a top prerequisite for new software selection should have the flexibility to conform to their company's workflow processes.

The multi-generational, privately held and family-owned manufacturing business has grown exponentially under Peter Kip, Jr.’s leadership. Adding new product lines, creating or acquiring new divisions, and adapting new technologies has fueled the growth of the business. With physical expansion to include a production and warehouse facility on the California border of Mexico in Mexicali, the new jobs created in the Cazenovia, N.Y., community have become more specialized and less manual, vastly improving the lives and economic situations of Pelco employees and their families.

Since implementing xTuple, Pelco has retained the full complement of employees in their Central New York headquarters, while also bringing on laborers in Mexicali to meet the additional customer demand driven by the company’s New York-based professionals.

Pelco has used xTuple software since 2014, host locally on-site, with a Support Contract to ensure dedicated assistance as needed and provide for additional training of staff. Pelco also uses the xTuple Connect add-on to speed day-to-day processes by automating all business software connections between the system of record and corporate email.

As CEO, Kip focuses on defined sales reporting and financials, while production and accounting departments are daily power users of the full suite of xTuple features.

Kip said, “xTuple was ready to go for us off-the-shelf; we had little need for too much customization of the software other than modifications on reports to match our desired formatting, such as invoices and packing lists, and some modified fields for sales reporting.” 

“We’re a build-to-order company with a just-in-time inventory model. We don’t build one product 100% in one location; production locations alternate between our Central NY headquarters and Mexicali. Schedules are based on wherever we can best serve our end customer. The ability to plan production across multiple locations was a big plus for us.”

The vast majority of Pelco sales are made via purchase orders from contracted sales representatives across the country, managed by Pelco-employed regional sales directors.

Today, Pelco is proud to be ISO 9001-2015 certified which specifies requirements for quality management within the organization. The ISO certification demonstrates that Pelco consistently provides products and services that meet customer and applicable statutory and regulatory requirements. It assures conformity and consistency in all that they do.

Additionally, Pelco holds several industry-specific certifications:

• UL (formerly known as Underwriters Laboratories) which helps Pelco demonstrate its corporate reputation for safety, compliance and sustainability and certifies that the company delivers reliable, quality products and technologies, especially important for electrical devices and components
• CE marking (the European equivalent of UL) is a legally required marking in the European Union (EU) to signify that products traded on the extended Single Market in the European Economic Area (EEA) have been assessed to meet high safety, health, and environmental protection requirements