The Quest Education team got a chance to talk to Lisa Tran and Tammy Gaston from Stoner Incorporated about keeping their small, rural Pennsylvania business current. Stoner races way ahead of most companies of their size by emphasizing education, innovation, and continuous updates.

Key Takeaways

About Stoner INC.

Stoner, Inc. is a third-generation, family-owned company founded by Paul Stoner in 1942. Based in Quarryville, Pa., the company has remained rooted in the values of patience and persistence characterized by its founder, Paul Stoner. They celebrate their 75th anniversary this year.

Today, Stoner manufactures a wide variety of branded cleaners and lubricants for consumer retailers, manufacturers, service businesses, government agencies, and universities worldwide. Stoner is a recognized leader in the plastics, urethane, composites, rubber, electronics, detailing and car wash industries.

A brief history of Stoner: In the 1960s, Stoner’s success with rubber molding led to release agents for thermoplastic injection. By the 1970s, Stoner expanded into polyurethane molding. During the 1980s new cleaners and rust preventives were added, and in the 1990s Stoner developed products for investment casting and melt spinning of polyester and nylon fiber. In 2000, Stoner purchased Zip Molders Edge products and in 2006 acquired the Dwight Products Nix Stix line for polyurethane molding. In 2008, Stoner acquired the Releasomers line for rubber and rotational molding. In 2013, the TraSys brand for rubber and rotational molding was added and the Honey Wax and KantStik brands for composites molding were added in 2014.”

To Stoner, digital transformation is more than just a concept. It’s a sustainable experience that saves money and automates processes. Digital transformation for Stoner relies on a core culture that is fully committed to the process of change. When it comes to transitions, “We kind of jump in with two feet,” says Lisa.

Can you share your JD Edwards release history? How long were you on 9.1? 9.0, etc.?

Stoner implemented JD Edwards OneWorld in 2001, then 8.10 around 2005, 9.0 in 2011 and 9.2 in 2017. Stoner is probably one of the smallest companies using JD Edwards, but we have more than doubled in size since the original implementation – both in revenue and number of JDE users.

What were the benefits of deploying these changes, and how have they affected your business?

Being a small business, implementing JD Edwards was a big investment and a big leap of faith at the beginning. But, it has absolutely been the best decision for our company. The software has grown with us, and there is still plenty of functionality left as we continue to grow.

New features enable Stoner to provide exceptional service to our customers all with one package – from Customer Interaction tracking (call notes) using CSMS, to Quality tracking, to EDI, to documents and labels. We try to do every function either with JDE software, or third-party apps that are built with JDE tools, for seamless integration. Our JDE database is the primary point of record for all data and is used extensively for Business Intelligence analysis – everything from Sales to Operations.

What are a few ways your business has benefited from upgrading to 9.2? More specifically, is there certain functionality in 9.2 that was in a sense, a game changer?

Specifically, in our most recent upgrade to 9.2, the embedded BI Publisher enabled us to replace a 3rd Party report writer, reducing licensing costs. The bursting, emailing and data-driven printing in BI Publisher allow us to provide the same high level of service to our customers and efficiencies within our organization. For example, having documents emailed directly to users save time over finding them in the Job Status grid, and they can easily forward the documents to customers or suppliers after reviewing.

Furthermore, we expect some of the UXOne charts to open better analysis tools to more users in many departments. Customer Service Reps armed with Watchlists & Graphical analysis charts mean orders flow better and exceptions are less likely to slip through the cracks.

What are some first steps to ease more small businesses onto JD Edwards software?

As part of building modernity into our culture, we at Stoner want to increase JD Edwards presence across different industries, including those who were previously unfamiliar with the products. We recently invited someone who didn’t know the product to a meeting. While he didn’t understand many of the terms at the beginning, he showed interest in the presentations and demonstrated robust understanding by the end of the conference. Basically, the key to making JD Edwards more relatable to users is conveying a key value. Start with why this upgrade should matter to them and why.

We also have a longer-term vision for engaging Millennials on college campuses so that they can be fluent in the concept and surrounding terms. Millennial input provides an ideal opportunity for product growth since Millennials already tune into technology and get excited about new and special features.

Similarly, other small businesses should share their unique stories in special interest groups. We understand the benefit of SIGs because we kickstarted a small business SIG that transformed how many smaller enterprises integrated JD Edwards.