Digitizing GreatLight – 10 Year Journey of Building Tech

GreatLight was founded in 2007 by the company’s current President and CEO, Minglong Weng. Like other start-up companies at the time, Minglong Weng and his team utilized pre-established software platforms to assist them through the scaling of the business. However, when the GreatLight team received orders from their two biggest clients at the time, Acuity and Cooper Lighting, they realized they needed to advance their digital presence within the supply chain industry.

Hence, Minglong Weng employed Chhaya, the company’s current Vice President of Technology and Transformation, back in 2011 to assist in digitizing GreatLight. Since Chhaya’s employment, over a decade of technological advancements have been made to enhance the way GreatLight conducts business internally and with buyers and suppliers. This piece stands to highlight these technological achievements.

Here is a timeline illustrating how GreatLight has digitized their platforms over the last decade:

As mentioned, Chhaya spearheaded technology development within GreatLight. When she first began working for the company, GreatLight used multiple platforms to manage Enterprise Resource Planning Systems (ERP). However, few know that Chhaya was part of a small team of five people. This means that Chhaya, along with the rest of the team members, all had a helping hand in the first technological advancement made within the company.

While managing ERP systems across multiple platforms, Chhaya had Ohio State University conduct a study to identify the best software available at that time for supply chain business. The team recommended SAP B-1, and the GreatLight team decided to proceed with it. One challenge during software implementation was the availability of integrators and custom app developers for B-1. Chhaya discovered contract engineers through services like Elance (now Upwork) and other platforms. One of these engineers eventually founded their own company, CtrlS, Now BeoneExpert, now GreatLight is one of their largest clients. Chhaya has employed this resourceful approach multiple times over the last decade. Similarly, she continued to use this bootstrap method of finding and developing ingenious resources. She did all this while simultaneously implementing the new ERP system; the team developed a platform to manage requests for quotes (RFQs) from customers effectively.

Chhaya and the GreatLight team successfully implemented SAP B-1 globally. Specifically, they rolled out SAP B-1 in six different countries over a 2 to 3-year period. Among these countries were China and India, each with distinct accounting laws compared to the United States. The implementation demanded patience, cultural competence, and strong communication skills. Chhaya leveraged indigenous and customized SAP applications tailored to each country’s requirements, tapping into enterprising resources worldwide at minimal cost. A significant benefit of this approach was substantial annual license savings, totaling over $100,000. Through perseverance and tenacity, Chhaya achieved an unparalleled, cost-effective SAP B-1 platform to meet GreatLight’s global needs.

The first quality reporting app via Android was developed. Minglong Weng realized that products are often assessed for damage and quality when they arrive at a warehouse. During this assessment at the warehouse, the quality of the product is analyzed for damages. If there is damage present or the quality of the product is poor, then communication will be sent to both the buyer and supplier, notifying them of the circumstance.

This was more of a reactive approach to managing the quality of goods. To move towards a more proactive approach, GreatLight created an app so that when suppliers notice there is a problem, they can report it on the app, and an email will be sent to everyone associated with the project notifying them of the situation. Hence, we would fix the issue in the manufactured country before it arrives in the States, which saves buyers time and money.

Chhaya and her team, who were, at the time, inexperienced in iOS and Android app development, received proposals ranging from $90,000 from a Columbus-based company to $35,000-$45,000 from Indian contractors. Ultimately, they engaged a contractor who developed the app for under $6,000. This contractor continued to assist GreatLight by developing additional iOS and Android applications for quality, supplier, and quoting management, laying the groundwork for the current Global mesh Platform.

At this time, GreatLight has begun to advance its RFQ portal and APQP portal for its customers. In addition to accomplishing that, the team was overcoming communication challenges within China. More specifically, China had laws surrounding the communication suppliers China could have with other manufacturers and buyers. Hence, this was another technological challenge GreatLight had to overcome. As a solution to this problem, GreatLight found a service that was a captive tunnel to improve SAP speed and ensure adherence to China data storage requirements.

This was also the year when GreatLight started its own warehouse. Chhaya picked a WMS system that was compatible with SAP B-1, simple to implement, but had all the functionality needed for teams in the warehouse to do their work, including inventory tracking, visibility of goods, proper reporting, and compatibility with barcode readers, label printers, and other needs.

SAP B-1 was implemented in Poland. Although by now the team was well versed in this implementation process, every country has customization which needs a lot of care and diligence. The only difference between this implementation process and the one conducted a few years ago in India was that GreatLight now had a team of at least 3-4 members within the technology department.

The GreatLight team needed good reporting, data visualization, and dashboarding. So, the company evaluated Tableau, Domo, Zoho, and Power BI as platforms to implement. GreatLight ultimately picked Power BI to now adhere to Microsoft and the emerging Azure technology stack. Power BI licensing cost was just 10% less than the cost for the Tableau platform, yet it didn’t have the evolved product capability it has now. Regardless, it was enough to get started on this journey of creating reports and providing real-time data for all teams, including sales, supply chain, quality, and sourcing. This Power BI system helped bring data to the GreatLight Team and to our global customers.

During this time, GreatLight acquired two manufacturing factories and integrated three new software platforms, including ManagersPlus and SensrTrx. ManagerPlus is an asset and equipment management software that helps organizations streamline their maintenance workflows and gain intelligent, data-driven visibility. SensrTrx provides manufacturing analytics solutions by transforming data from the factory floor into understandable and accessible information in real-time.

In 2021, the wheels began to turn for launching the mesh platform globally. Chhaya played a crucial role in finding and developing various resources to kickstart this journey. This included collaborating with partners such as Cactus Creatives, Science Soft, Logiciel Technologies, and others to develop the MVP of the product and conduct initial market testing. Another significant platform focused on transforming inventory planning and improving supply chain and customer service efficiency. This involved evaluating, adopting, and implementing Vanguard (Walter Kluwer Planning) and Conexium, both of which enhance inventory planning, forecasting, and customer service functions.

As users at GreatLight began to request more reports, data, and information to aid in their decision-making, there arose a need to restructure the technology stack. Chhaya and her team explored various options, ultimately determining that focusing on the data side of the system was the most effective approach. Initial quotes for creating a data lake capable of gathering information from all SAP files, individual Excel files, New mesh, Old mesh, Legacy mesh, and other software products ranged from $125,000 to $250,000.

Eventually, Chhaya selected an East European company with skilled technology engineers to assist in developing the data lake. She also recruited and cultivated in-house resources to enhance reporting, optimize speeds, and refine data streams. Simultaneously, efforts commenced to revamp the supply chain and sourcing teams, leveraging the data lake and a combination of technologies. This initiative gave rise to the Metrics Portal.

Additional platforms to manage internal functions and external relationships more effectively were implemented. For example, Planful, a financial planning tool, was employed. Similarly, GoMingo, a manufacturing analytics platform designed to provide real-time insights into production processes was also utilized.

As we sit here today, Metrics Portal is becoming a very important tool to help sourcing and supply chain, along with suppliers, perform valuable communications about purchase order acknowledgment, change dates and quantities, escalate issues, proactively highlight potentially late shipments, and perform a range of other functionality. In addition, upgrading the domains in Sharepoint and Azure is improving productivity for all teams globally.

GreatLight Continues to Digitize

From the conception of GreatLight, Minglong Weng, Chhaya and their team have been working towards a vision to provide their suppliers and buyers with a one-stop shop where they can manage RFQ’s, APQP, procurement, and more in one database. Over the years they have customized these platforms to perfectly fit the needs of the company. However, in 2022 Sahil Shah, became the CEO of mesh Works. What Sahil and the GreatLight IT team accomplished was taking the portals made for GreatLight and configuring them into a single platform multi-tenant SAAS product where any company can easily implement the system into their organization.

None of these technological advancements would have been made possible without the VP of Technology and Transformation. Chhaya and her team have always been solution-providers that have assisted in kicking off the many visions our CEO has invoked over the years. GreatLight is forever grateful to this sector of the company.

According to Minglong Weng, two other big reasons for company’s success in digitizing lies in:

A) Commitment from Minglong Weng and all senior leadership is their commitment to Lean, Six Sigma and continuous improvement. This commitment guides them to make strong investments and engage with the team.

B) Incredible engagement by all teams globally – Without this, no digitizing would be possible. Team knows that technology is being incorporated to make them more productive, have information easily accessible and improve their work.

Today, the grand vision under GreatLight continues to constantly create and discover new and innovative ways to advance the way they use technology throughout the company. What mesh, Metrics Works, and GreatLight cannot do due to various restrictions, GreatLight technologies group will continue to follow new pathways and lead the group by adopting, failing, learning, and being successful at ensuring that technology remains a mainstay in improving our business everywhere.