Transcript of Merit Brass Customer Testimonial Video

[00:33] My name is Ender Yilmaz. I am the director of IT here at Merit Brass. I am responsible for all the information technologies, networks, and ERP software. I'm also handling long-term IT strategies here at Merit with a small team.

[00:57] Merit Brass is a master distributor and also a production company. We are working on fillings, flanges, pipes, and metal products, mostly. We have a nipple production here in Cleveland, which is our headquarters also. We have four more distribution centers around the US.

[01:21] When we decided to go D365, we were already using Dynamics AX 2012 R3. ERP is a very important part of our process. We are using advanced warehouse, production shop, floor control, and basically everything within the system. So, it was about six years old. No upgrades have been done since the original project. We had multiple ISV solutions, which weren't upgraded, and some of the ISVs were also out of business.

[02:00] We are currently live for 13 months now. We are definitely more happy compared to our previous situation. We retired most of the ISV modules. We retired our system room. Everything is on the cloud, and we are 90-95% using Microsoft Ecosystem.

[02:23] Currently, we have about 250 users. Half of them are regular system users, and the other half are warehouse and, manufacturing users. Most of our users were already on AX, so they knew the process as well, but they needed to tune up the new application. IBI helped us to speed them up into the new system very quickly, and they were in no time good resources within the project.

[03:04] We started training immediately because this is a video tool. While we were working on the data upgrade, our business users were able to start using the system with demo data. And with IBI users, when we started pulling them into the conference rooms for analysis, they already knew D365. We keep training all the users using IBI. We didn't need to spare our project resources for that. That process was going in parallel by itself.

[03:47] So, I definitely recommend the IBI platform. It has nice learning paths on roles. So we know who will follow which videos and which learning paths to be competent in their role.

[04:09] The IBI platform has really good cost-saving options. It's not “put in everyone within the system at the same time”. Instead of that, we put paid people from departments month to month. So, while we completed the project, everyone was trained.

[04:31] IBI is not just a tool you can use at the project phase but it's also an essential tool for us for onboarding new users to the system. When we hire someone new after OSHA training, they go through the IBI training, which is a huge time-saving for us. When onboarding users with IBI, you don't need to spare your other users to train them; spare that kind of resource. But they complete their training process mostly by themselves.

[05:04] I'm Birkan Ozgur. I am the credit manager of Merit Brass Company. I am in charge of the AR department, and we are responsible with credits and collections. The short videos, I think they were like really quick, and they were really to the point. They were helping individuals to go in and watch the short video and stop and go back to their actual screen and try to do exactly what they were seeing while watching on the videos.

[05:37] Because we didn't just watch the videos. What we did was, we watched the videos and we practiced on our test system after watching the videos. Those videos were not just for training or one-time videos. We kept our employees to have access to those videos just in case for the next three or four months that if they had any issues, they could go back to those videos and watch the videos again and then perform their tasks accordingly.

[06:08] Learning paths were really helpful because the biggest challenge of any training is to understand the curriculum and understand the order of training that you have to provide. And the most beautiful thing with IBI was they were already there. The paths were all already there. And then, and as a manager, I was able to control people's progress in their paths and in their training program.

[06:43] I was able to see their progress, and I was able to, you know, plan their further training according to their progress. I would definitely recommend IBI to other companies due to the fact that if you really would like to have a standardized training program, and if you really want your employees to be able to have access to information rather than them keep coming to you with questions, IBI is a perfect tool for that.

[07:15] It's not only training, seeing people's progress in training, but also learning the capabilities of the system was one of the reasons I would recommend other companies to use IBI.

[07:33] I'm Rhonda Losh, and I'm the director of customer service here at Merit Brass. I have a team of about 20 people that report to me in various functions within the company. It was very easy to log in and get started. They provided me with the listing of the modules that I would be doing, and so those were already assigned to me, so it was really easy to just click through the modules and find them and get started.

[07:59] The short videos were really quick and easy, so if I just had a few minutes of free time, I would sit down and go through those really quick. What I did when I was watching the videos is I would have two screens open, so while I was watching the video, I would also be going through the through the system at the same time to follow along. So as I was learning one thing, I was doing it on the other screen.

[08:21] I use IBI as a starter for the training. And then once they've gone through all the learning paths, then we'll sit them down with an instructor for any additional questions that they may have that didn't get answered through the videos. But all new people that get onboarded are required. It's a requirement training to go through the videos through the IBI videos.

[08:43] I would highly recommend any new user on the IBI videos. It allows ease of use. You can use it at your own pace where you can log in and log out whenever you have free time.

[08:56] Hi, my name is Jason LeDonne. I am the corporate project manager here at Merit Brass, which means I basically oversee and help facilitate any of the ongoing projects in the company covering multiple departments and personnel.

[09:12] The way IBI was set up was, basically for us, there was two main versions. There was a learner view and an administrative view. So, you could kind of manage it and observe your team or the overall project. You could see who's been active, who hasn't been active. You could really see the details of what they've watched

[09:29] The way it's set up with very short, succinct videos allows you to find the resources you're looking for. They're very focused information on the direct, topics you're looking for. And then what's nice is many of them have a short follow up question and answer session so you can kind of reinforce what you've just learned hopefully. And again, as an administrator, you can go back and see how your, your users are testing too and see if they're actually retaining what they're seeing as opposed to just scrolling through and clicking through the information.

[09:57]  From being the manager of this project, I definitely saw a benefit to those users who use these videos. I found that they were much more independent on their own learning and were able to follow through on their own training at much more of an expedited process than some of the others were. Those who didn't tap into this resource, we found them needing more assistance along the way, needing reinforcement, whereas those who were IBI active were much more successful in their training.

[10:25]  I received feedback from multiple department users that they found these videos and resources very useful and very helpful. A lot of them like to work independently. Some folks are less apt to wanna ask for help and assistance, and they were able to use this on their own and get the information without having to ask for someone else's help. So I did get a lot of feedback from folks who were more introverted and learners who liked this, because they were allowed to kind of run on their own pace.

[10:50]  I also got feedback that they liked the question and answer follow up. It's one thing to have the information, but another thing to kind of digest it, understand it, and, and regurgitate it back out. So, both sides, the learners felt that they were getting a benefit from them. And then the reinforcement of the videos. You had live interactive screens with the dialogue that was going on to help reinforce the visual learners as well.

[11:14]  So we worked with IBI on a month to month basis with kind of active user accounts. We evaluated who we wanted to have access to. Each department came in with their own list of users who they felt needed access for training. So month to month we would update that list. Some people who we felt needed more time would extend it for additional months, maybe because of the role or because of how much training they still needed. Some folks because of the role were one month in and out with very focused attention. But we were able to tailor that on a monthly basis with IBI very easily. They were even able to tailor the new users with specific role of videos and assessments. So they were very, very cohesive with us and our month to month needs.

[11:59] There was very ease of highering and lowering of our user accounts each month with very simple dialogue that we communicated very quickly back and forth. Anytime there was a concern, if we had new users come in, in the middle of the month, we have a new employee and “hey, I know it's the second week. Do you think we can get them in this month now?” There was never an issue with getting them in on time and having that taken care of.

[12:23] I would obviously recommend IBI to anyone out there looking for a resource for training, especially when it comes to what we did with Microsoft D 365. It was great for the project planning side. It was great for our users. It was great for the overall implementation and success of our project. But now that that's passed, there is also a great use to tap into for new employees as they're coming in and new projects as they come up. We are able to tailor these videos and the content to our needs through IBI, and that ease of communication's really gonna just help us grow and foster our new employees as they come in.