Taurus International Manufacturing, Inc. distributes and manufactures firearms and accessories from their facilities in Miami Florida. An innovator in their field, Taurus International has long been regarded as a pioneer in the areas of customer satisfaction, safety and automation.  In 1984, Taurus revolutionized the firearms business by becoming the first company to offer its customers an unqualified Taurus Unlimited Lifetime Repair Policy™. In 1997, the company was the first to manufacture a firearm with a self contained key lock system, to prevent unauthorized use.  

More recently, Taurus realized that to keep pace with their growth, they would need to update their information technology infrastructure to drive automation and achieve greater efficiency while ensuring legal compliance with the governing agency that regulates their operations.  The foundational piece around which they’ve built their back-end processes is Microsoft Dynamics GP.  

The Microsoft Dynamics GP solution has enabled Taurus to accurately and reliably deliver on its continued innovation by assuring accurate back-end tracking and legal compliance—especially throughout its distribution process. It’s this adherence to automation efficiency that has made Taurus one of the industry’s most innovative suppliers to a loyal distribution channel that thrives on Taurus’ delivery speed and tracking accuracy.

Situation

Since firearm sales are heavily regulated, Taurus has stringent requirements when it comes to licensing and tracking firearm movement. Every time a firearm is touched, it needs to be tracked. And, every Taurus-issued serial number—currently upwards of 100,000—must be accurately reported on. As such, Taurus needed a solution that would integrate with the Federal Firearms License (FFL) system, operated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), a legal requirement for the sale of firearms in the United States.  This required tedious and complex back-end processes that were carried out manually with the use of Excel spreadsheets and disparate data sets.

“We have to know where a firearm is at every moment —period,” said David Blenker, Executive Vice President, CFO and COO, Taurus. “The Department of Tobacco and Firearms has strict mandates about how firearms are sold, shipped and repaired and we need to assure compliance at all times.”

Compounding this challenge, Taurus continued to see tremendous growth in its business. Orders in the past year have tripled and as a result, efficiently tracking these orders has become more critical than ever.

Solution

In the firearm business, Taurus deals with a great number of distributors and dealers, and speed of delivery is very important. In order to optimize its delivery speed, Taurus recognized that it needed to automate its complex back-end processes, without impacting critical FFL tracking processes. Taurus turned to Microsoft Dynamics integration expert, OmniVue Business Solutions, to ensure that all of their complex back-end processes were reliably automated.

OmniVue helped Taurus to fully integrate their processes, importing over 100,000 serial numbers and licenses into a single, integrated application leveraging a common data set in Microsoft Dynamics GP and eliminating the need for manual data entry previously managed with Excel spreadsheets.  Using the integrated solution, Taurus is now able to reliably and efficiently report on each step of a firearm’s movement with great speed and accuracy. The company has seen impressive productivity enhancements since using the powerful solution, especially in the area of receiving, cross docking (where inventory is pre-sold upon arrival) and managing their backorder process and procedures. Some of the advantages Microsoft Dynamics GP provides to Taurus include:

Inventory Tracking
Integration between a Warehouse Management System (WMS) and Microsoft Dynamics GP has served to create a solution that tracks not only what is available in the warehouse but it has broken it down to what is available as sellable inventory, repair center inventory, in-processing inventory and receiving inventory. The ability to have GP give us the visibility to see these different inventories allows the Taurus sales team to quote a buyer with Real time accurate information and then detail what would be available and when, depending on the current inventory status.  Providing this information to a buyer before GP, meant physically checking stock in the warehouse by a data entry person. 

Automated Reporting
Microsoft Dynamics GP delivers additional process efficiencies and time savings through its ability to scan serial numbers through the WMS solution and into GP, a process previously performed by manually entering numbers into the system where errors were inevitable and the process was long and time consuming.  Now with a simple report, Taurus is able to identify where each item is, down to the warehouse, row and shelf and the time it takes to do an accurate inventory has decreased dramatically.

Automated Receiving
Microsoft Dynamics GP Integration Manager has given us the availability to automate the creation of POs using an Advance Shipment Notice data file that comes from our manufacturing facility in Brazil. In combination with the Warehouse Management Solution and the Advance Shipment Notification, we are able to receive, cross-dock, pick, pack and ship our products faster and more efficiently than before.

Sales history management
The sales history for all Taurus firearms comes from Microsoft Dynamics GP including who it was shipped to, what government license they held, and the license expiration date under which it was sold.  This information is exported directly from GP to the ATF servers where they are able to access it 24/7 via the dial-up/web in an effort to track firearms by the ATF, a process previously performed using paper and micro-fiche. This enables Taurus to maintain its legal obligations as a firearms manufacturer.

Customer Service Support
An integration with Microsoft Dynamics GP pushes data based on the serial number to the Taurus Web site where owners can access information about their firearm including the year of production and technical specs among other things.  This site has also assisted crime scene investigators and law enforcement officials to collect technical information such as caliber, weight, etc based on the serial number (As seen on CSI-).  This site with the information from Microsoft Dynamics GP reduces the volume of incoming calls to the Taurus customer service department.

Multi-Company
The capability of Microsoft Dynamics GP multi-company to run four companies from one data base has saved Taurus both time and money eliminating their need to run individual systems for each.   

“Dynamics GP allows us to link everything through Microsoft SQL which makes data mining inside Taurus extremely manageable,” said Carlos Vasquez, IT Manager, Taurus. “This integration enables us to automate every process of the supply chain”. And, when FFL regulations change we can quickly incorporate them into our process and apply them automatically. This is something that previously would take hours to do manually.”

Results Achieved

Since its implementation, the Microsoft Dynamics GP solution has consistently provided Taurus with the reliability and speed is required to remain an industry leader.  Through superior automation powered by Microsoft Dynamics GP, Taurus continues to be the go-to choice for firearms dealers. Back end process automation delivered by OmniVue has enabled Taurus to become one of the most proactive and profitable firearms distributors in the world. By counting on and trusting its business process management to Microsoft Dynamics GP, Taurus saves thousands of hours of manual documentation while assuring protection from the risk of non-compliance to stringent government regulations for firearms distribution.

“Due to the changing nature of our business, we needed to have a business platform that could move as fast as we needed to,” said Raymond Hospitalet, Corporate Controller,  Taurus USA. “The system perfectly matches our business needs and because it is so easy to use, training new users takes as little as two hours. This has helped us to speed everything from inventory stocking and invoicing to picking, packing and shipping. In fact, with our Dynamics solution month, end close processes have gone from four days to just one and a half.”

To ensure that Taurus is well positioned for growth and expansion, the company transitioned to Business Ready Licensing which provides each user with additional breadth and depth across more areas of the business.

“Due to the nature of our business, we needed to change rapidly to ensure best practices,” added Blenker. “Business Ready Licensing gives us the ability to keep up while having the flexibility we can count on.”

Simply put, Taurus could not run its business without its Microsoft Dynamics GP Advanced Management business solution and its integration support from OmniVue. The solution is the backbone of the company’s entire business process—from sales and distribution to picking and shipping to receiving and repairs. Microsoft Dynamics GP also runs Taurus’ business process with strict adherence to government regulations for firearms registration and tracking. Taurus could not deliver on its unique lifetime repair policy without the Microsoft Dynamics GP solution from OmniVue, nor could it assure true compliance to government regulations.

Microsoft Dynamics

Microsoft Dynamics is a line of integrated, adaptable business management solutions that enables you and your people to make business decisions with greater confidence. Microsoft Dynamics works like familiar Microsoft software such as Microsoft Office, which means less of a learning curve for your people, so they can get up and running quickly and focus on what's most important. And because it is from Microsoft, it easily works with the systems that your company already has implemented. By automating and streamlining financial, customer relationship, and supply chain processes, Microsoft Dynamics brings together people, processes, and technologies, increasing the productivity and effectiveness of your business, and helping you drive business success.