Client Story

As a wholesaler of vitamins and supplements, Windmill Health Products sells their products and third-party products into every major retailer in the United States. After predicting a period of significant growth ahead, the company realized that their existing legacy system was not scalable enough to manage this surge in sales.

Windmill relied heavily on the talents of their warehouse manager, Reuben, who magically knew where every one of over a thousand SKUs were at all times. An increase in volume would result in total chaos, the kind they experienced whenever Reuben was sick or on vacation. With this in mind, they had to put in a new system to manage the impending growth as soon as possible.

After evaluating several ERP options, including JD Edwards and SAP, Windmill chose to implement Microsoft Dynamics NAV with Clients First as their software partner. Windmill’s Dynamics NAV system is customized to fit their warehouse and distribution centers, equipped with solutions for Radio Frequency (RF) picking. Phil Piscopo, CFO at Windmill, describes the experience as going from the Stone Age to Star Wars. “We now have perfect order picking,” he explains. “Every location in the warehouse is now barcoded and our diverse employee base, including non-English speakers, are able to use RF guns to find products seamlessly.”

Dynamics NAV has given Windmill Health Products the scalability they needed to grow quickly, without adding any additional personnel. Revenues have tripled over a period of three years and the company has managed a 200-300% increase in volume with the same number of employees. Since implementing Dynamics NAV and improving the efficiency of their warehouse, Windmill has also cut customer service staff by 80% and experienced no shipping or picking errors.

Windmill works with the same Clients First support person that they have dealt with since the beginning. No matter what time of day or night, Clients First is quick to come up with solutions to any issues they encounter. According to Phil, Clients First is more than just a trading partner. “They delivered on their promise and continue to act as our CIO, providing responsive service and Dynamics NAV expertise to this day.”

“With NAV, we have stable costs with extraordinary growth. In the future, we can scale to almost any level in sales, any customer requirement, and any financial requirement, and the system would be completely scalable and functional.”