Nelson Brothers Entrusts Velosio with its upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management

Background

Nelson Brothers is a leading manufacturer and distributor of commercial explosives products and services to many of the largest mining and aggregate producers in the United States. It has supplied over 17 billion pounds of its flagship emulsion line, PowerNel™, into these markets, along with reliable electronic blasting systems and the latest technical applications. Additionally, through its specialty chemical business, Nelson Brothers provides products and services across various industrial markets (including emulsifiers to other explosives manufacturers) in over 30+ countries. The company has recently expanded to produce a chemical emulsifier used in fertilizers and explosives.

Nelson Brothers was utilizing Microsoft Dynamics AX to manage its finance, operations, and manufacturing facilities, but knew that the aging on-premises solution needed to be upgraded to a modern, supported, cloud based solution. Velosio, its long-term partner, suggested that the next logical step would be to upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. This would give the Nelson Brothers team 24/7 user access, more reports, KPIs, and better data protection, aligning with a culture of continuous improvement.

Solution

Based on a rich history of mutual trust and open rapport, Nelson Brothers leaned into a Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management solution which would eliminate the need for on premises servers and maintenance from the IT team, as well as costly third-party solutions. It would also mean incorporating Power BI for improved reporting and dashboards, replacing its incumbent ZAP BI solution. Improved reports for operations, including queries and dashboards for fluctuating raw materials costing, provide a much clearer picture.

Demonstrating further trust in its partnership with Velosio, Nelson Brothers paid its entire project invoice on day one of implementation, which is virtually unheard of in the IT industry. Sure enough, the project came in on budget and time, implemented in over five locations across the US.

“The transition from AX to Finance and Operations was really, really smooth … We call our main consultant from Velosio ‘the dream’.”

Blake Cummings, Manager, ERP Systems at Nelson Brothers

“The transition from AX to Finance and Operations was really, really smooth,” says Blake Cummings, manager of ERP Systems at Nelson Brothers. “It was an incremental upgrade; we were able to evaluate and eliminate some of our custom processes and also ISVs we were using,” continues Cummings.

Two key Nelson Brothers ERP IT staff were trained on the new solution and then transferred their knowledge to the end users, resulting in excellent user acceptance. Jason Baker, Director of Finance Administration, reports that beginning with Microsoft Dynamics AX and now with the upgrade to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management, the organization has grown more complex, is churning out more SKUs, and meeting market demand without adding significant headcount. “We call our main consultant from Velosio the dream,” reports Baker.

System Benefits

Nelson Brother experienced ROI right away by eliminating costly on-premises servers. “It was very attractive to have Dynamics 365 all cloud-based,” says Mac Sparks, IT Director for Nelson Brothers. “We eliminated everything on premises and the hardware requirements to run AX 2012,” continues Sparks.

Updates and uptime are smooth, and monthly calls with Velosio’s delivery and support team keep the solution humming along. Because Nelson Brothers is transporting volatile explosives and is heavily regulated by the ATF, inventory is closely monitored, and the new solution better supports the regulatory environment. “It’s so nice that F&O is available anywhere, anytime,” says Cummings. “And we don’t have to worry about dealing with a VPN or maintaining servers.”

“F&O is pretty user-friendly once you get to know it,” says Tanya Clark, Senior Accounting Manager. “I think we are pretty much paperless now with the system. It works very well. It’s so nice to have automated inventory management.” Some additional benefits gained include:

• Streamlined asset management function for transportation and service portion of the business
• Decreased loss of liquid viscous granular product in its manufacturing process
• Cloud provides better accessibility for staff
• Saved money on internal resources
• Improved fleet management
• More robust reporting
• Approvals are easier

Future Plans

Nelson Brothers is currently working on adopting Microsoft Fabric to help everyone in the organization manage, interpret, and act on data and insights. “Fabric will make generating our data sets into Power Platform much easier, smoother, and faster,” comments Cummings. Nelson Brothers has plans to continue to grow its specialty chemicals business over the next several years and is looking for help from Microsoft Fabric to do so. “We have a strategic effort to quadruple our revenue within the next five years, and our partnership with Velosio will help us get there,” says Baker.

The team is also looking to adopt Microsoft Copilot to continue working smarter, be more productive, boost creativity, and stay connected.