Customer Profile

Mutual Materials

Mutual Materials was founded after Seattle’s Great Fire of 1889, when 30 acres of the city’s downtown district were destroyed. At the urging of 600 businessmen, the city passed an ordinance mandating that all buildings and sidewalks in Seattle must from then on be made of fireproof materials. Daniel Houlahan, a bricklayer from San Francisco, took advantage of this opportunity and created Builders Brick Company, the predecessor of Mutual Materials.

Mutual Materials is now the premier manufacturer and distributor of brick and concrete products in the Pacific Northwest. The company has a total of 13 branches and eight plants in Washington and Oregon; it also operates an established distribution network throughout the United States and around the world. In order to keep track of its more than 12,000 active customers, Mutual Materials uses a comprehensive database to facilitate the handling of orders, billing and other client-specific information.

Problem:
Using Oracle Discoverer as a standalone application, Mutual Materials labored for more than six months developing fundamental billing, receivables and general ledger information reports for both its customers and corporate management. In addition to this extensive amount of time expended on the front end, Mutual Materials spent several days creating specialized reports each time its internal credit managers needed specific financial information. The company realized it had to find a way to effectively generate customized reports and compile information within hours, not days or months. It also knew it needed a solution that would not include a lengthy or complicated consulting implementation process.


NoetixViews was fast and simple to implement and gave us exactly what we wanted for constructing customized, timely and accurate information for both internal and external customers.
Guy DeFlorio
Director of Information Systems
Mutual Materials

Solution:
Mutual Materials carefully considered the available options and chose NoetixViews to help it manage its reporting processes. A comprehensive software solution, NoetixViews enables businesses to significantly reduce the time they invest creating both initial reporting structures and subsequent alterations. Most importantly, Mutual Materials selected NoetixViews because the program's short and simple implementation process allows both IT staff and end users to generate reports using a minimum of outside consulting services.

Result:
The transition was simple and the returns great. Using a two-tiered instruction system over the course of a few weeks, program analysts taught nearly 20 staff members to run financial reports using NoetixViews. This addition of line-of-business users, combined with accelerated turnaround times, reduced the chore of creating certain critical reports from a protracted process to one that can be completed in an hour. Only two days after installing NoetixViews, Mutual Materials began generating its first essential scheduled reports, including one customized to keep its credit managers updated on both customer payments and lien status. End-user self-sufficiency has expanded because of NoetixViews, allowing Mutual Materials to generate scores of complicated billing, sales, purchasing and financial management reports on a daily and monthly basis. Since installing NoetixViews, the company has redeployed one full-time IT resource to other essential projects. This increased efficiency of administrative services gives the company more time to run its business and has helped cement Mutual Materials as the leader in its field.

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