JCI Case Study
A Brief History
In 1975 community leader, Nolan Hinson, had a vision for a coordinated service program for IDD residents in Smithfield, North Carolina. Fueled by a $12,000 grant, Johnston County Industries (JCI) was founded with three staff in a 2,000 square foot rented space. Within a year, JCI had outgrown that space – and then the next and the next. Today, JCI’s team of 225 staff serve communities in six North Carolina counties providing an array of program services including vocational rehabilitation, community based employment and support for others facing barriers to employment.
A Story of a Dynamic, Growing Non-profit Agency
Johnston County Industries of Selma, North Carolina has achieved a number of awards and certifications, including:
- Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities recognizing JCI’s commitment to continuous enhancement of programs and services.
- ISO90012015 Certification – meeting rigorous international standards for quality management systems.
- AS9100D Certification – meeting the specific quality standard for the aerospace industry, including statutory and regulatory requirements.
Achieving these certifications has enabled JCI to compete on a global stage, attracting the attention of familiar brands and growing revenues from $5.5 million to more than $10 million since 2013.
A few of JCI’s customers include: Caterpillar®, Electrolux, SPX, and Spartan Medical.
With Growth Comes Complexity
When President & CEO Bill Sharek joined the company in 2012, information and reporting from the manufacturing division could not be transferred automatically to JCI’s financial and accounting systems.
Struggles Before Vertex
- JCI staff were manually entering journal entries from one system to the other
- Contract profitability was nearly impossible to measure as labor costs couldn’t be accounted for on a contract-by-contract basis.
- Payroll calculations were extremely time-consuming: two to three full days.
- Manual entry caused inevitable errors required extensive staff time to identify the error and correct it.
- Reporting had no drill-down capability – analysis was only available at the macro level.
- Managing and cost-accounting over 5,000 component parts was entirely manual.
- Breakdown of inventory costs was unavailable, and could not be associated with specific customer contracts.
- Accurate job quoting was impossible.
- Three production employees and two accounting employees were engaged full-time to manage the manual data collection and entry.
Leading Up To Vertex
The root cause required very little research: the manufacturing management software could not communicate with JCI accounting and payroll systems. There was no interface, no way to import data, no process to eliminate costly, error-prone and time-consuming manual re-entry.
JCI was a visionary in the early days of vocational rehabilitation programs and a satisfied user of Vertex Financials and Payroll since 1990. So when Vertex introduced Vertex Production, a comprehensive solution designed specifically for rehab agencies operating assembly and manufacturing services, they knew they had to take advantage.
Vertex leadership values the partnership: “Working with JCI simply made our software better. By collaborating with Bill and Ronnie and their team, we were able to identify and enhance features needed by sustainable businesses everywhere.”
“We got smart about what worked and what didn’t. There was business we walked away from. There was business we won because today, we know very precisely what we’re doing.”
