News

September 11, 2009 Day of Remembrance

Today is a day to reflect on what's good in the world.

September 7th, 2009

Happy Labor Day, I hope all of you are enjoying your day off.
Our software conversion over the past month as been for the most part, very succesful. As we knew woudl happen, it has slowed down all of the administrative wrk like order entry, payables and receiveables for the short term as we have all learned how the system works. The good news is, we are learning quickly and gaining speed every day.

Our online system, DOTS, is now  functioning with the very basic information now available. Over the next week or two, the bells and whistles will start to be implemented.

Our automated e-mail communications are also a priority to get re-started. I am hoping that we will have that part of the new engine built and running by the end of the week. Our old system of e-mails was built to send out individual e-mails for every order and were told many times, it was annoying to get so many e-mails. Our new model is to send out one e-mail daily updating the status of every current in the system. We are thinking that it will be easier to follow the orders and react to any issue that may be occuring that would prevent an order from being produced and shipped on time.

I am also getting ready this week to continue my travels with the New Product Showcase. The schedule is posted on the website, so those of you in Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Milwuakee, Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Des Moines and Omaha, can check to see the day, place and time I will be there. I will be displaying a whole new setup of designs and techniques in the booth, so be sure to stop by if you can.

Since it is Labor Day, it is now time for me to take a nap.

Rob

August 18th, 2009

After 6 days of use, we are getting more and more comfortable using our new system. Unfortunately, the first week did not come without some issues and all we can do is apologize to the customers we caused problems to and promise that we are rapidly making the necessary adjustments so it never happens again.

We are rapidly getting caught up on entering the backlog of orders and are making sure all rushes, arts and revisions are taking priority. Our goal is to be completely caught up sometime midweek, this week. DOTS and the automated e-mail communication shoudl be up and running today, so those of you that miss the real-time status information, you will have it shortly.

i have had some questions about our sanity of changing systems when we had one of the best, if not the best system of anyone in the contract decorating industry. the way I explain it is as a metaphor. 5 years ago, Tiger Woods was the best golfer of his time, and possibly ever. However, he realized that he could not sustain that status for the rest of his career if he continued with the same golf swing. Working with his swing coach, he totally re-built his swing to assure he would always be the best of the best even though it caused temporary problems. We were in the exact same situation. Using our old system, we were the best of the best in my opinion however we would not have been able to sustain that for the next 10 - 20 years with the system we were using. So, I elected to write a whole new custom program that would enable us to remain on top and go beyond in the future knowing that we would have hiccups along the way. It worked and we are accomplishing what we dreamed about when the decision was made to proceed.

If you would like to know more about the opportunities we now have, do not hesitate in calling. I am always looking to have solid discussions on what we can do and what our great customers would like to see us do going forward.

Rob


FLASH NEWS BULLETIN!!!

July 31st, 2009

I hope I got your attention with the header because I believe the following news will be exciting to most. I will say that it is exciting to everyone within Dubow Textile, because we have been working towrads this day for over 1 1/2 years. Today will be the last day we will be using our current management program that has run our company for the past 11 years. Starting Monday we will have a the latest and greatest technology at our fingertips. Our new software will be the nucleus of a revolutionary way of conducting business in the future. It is the center piece that will allow us to plug in additional modules to make all of us more efficient, with less labor, more information and most importantly less headaches.

  • The immediate things you, as our customers will be seeing is consolidated invoice.
  • Our system will hold invoicing of digitizing up to 2 weeks to allow an order to be processed so we can include the digitizng cost with the decorating cost. this means you won't have to put up with multiple invoices for one purchase order.
  • We will have a better inventory maangement system for inventroy controls, reports and details.
  • Our e-mail notification system will be totally revamped to give you better information concerning your orders as well as eliminating all erroneous e-mails.
  • The information you see on D.O.T.S. when you log on, will be in real time rather than delayed by 1 hour. In addition there will be more information so you can always be assured your order is being processed exactly how you ordered it.
  • We will have the ability to electronically connect to our customer's systems, if compatable to automatically share information without human intervention.
  • Your logo will be able to be added to the system so everytime we send out an order, your logo will appear on the packing slip along with an area for you to customize a message if you so desire.
This is only a few of the features we have programmed. Obviously a lot of the stuff we wanted is behind the scenes stuff to better manage your orders. All I ask is please be a little patient over the next short while as we all get comfortable with the system. It is different and will take a little getting used to. If you find a glitch, please let us know. If there is something specific you would like to see when you log in to DOTS, let us know, we can do it.

I will keep updating the blog as we launch to keep everyone informed. In the mean time, keep you fingers and toes crossed and wish us luck as we head to the future.

Rob