QAD Revitalizes Royal Agio Cigars

Before undergoing a QAD makeover, Royal Agio Cigars was using several custom systems developed in COBOL and Excel. In the cigar industry, quality control is paramount in production processes, and cigars must have a perfect amount of moisture, flavor and color to ensure the best quality experience for cigar enthusiasts. To reach those levels of satisfaction required strict control over all facets of the business, and their current systems were not cutting the mustard. Agio Cigars then began to build a custom designed system, but quickly abandoned it because it was becoming too costly and complicated.

QAD: The Solution

After Agio Cigars canceled the custom software project, they decided to use QAD, a fully integrated enterprise application. Ton Mens, concern controller at Agio Cigars, said, “The main reasons for choosing QAD were the fact that QAD itself was able to do the implementation and that QAD enterprise applications were a proven solution in the food industry, where the processes are similar to ours. Another aspect was that QAD is focused on manufacturing, which makes their applications truly lean. This makes management easier.”

QAD: The Benefits

Since implementing QAD, Agio Cigars has eliminated manual processes and has improved efficiencies in a variety of business areas.  A few of the immediate improvements Agio Cigars noticed were in reporting, personnel savings, and production flexibility. Using the QAD GL Report Writer, Agio Cigars is able to view numerous reports at a moment’s notice, and they greatly reduced the number of full-time employees working on order processing, financial administration, and production bookings.

Additionally, QAD Demand Management has enabled Agio Cigars to adapt to changes in production demand. The QAD module is capable of handling demand changes, and improves performance by providing demand planning and forecasting. With greater tools on their belt they are better able to reduce inventory costs by responding to changes more proactively.