In 2013, Element Five Solutions stepped in to help Baldinger Bakery overcome a critical situation. Today, the business is a vibrant, successful and innovative bakery.
In 2013, Baldinger’s CFO Dane Bogaard called our Executive Vice President, Srini Sathyamurthy in a panic. He needed a solution, quickly. Baldinger wanted to carve out from their partnership and do business themselves. Element Five Solutions implemented SAP ByDesign within two months. As Dane Bogaard says, “this was unheard of, to be able to implement SAP system in two months is very rare.” The team used the system in conjunction with their Canada locations to provide all departments with the resources they needed to be successful. The SAP system simplified the teams process with how they handled and sold their products. From their warehouse department to accounting, goals are easier to set, measure and achieve. With a system in place, they are able to produce 10,000 dozen buns an hour.
In our interview with Dane, we asked if he thinks this system can be used by any size business. His response was, “any size business could use it, it will help ease the manual processes and help attain goals quicker and more efficiently.” Dane wasn’t scared to admit that they were worried about going into debt. But shortly after the system went into place, they took over the whole bagel market for McDonalds in the United States. With a good system in place, they were provided information that helped them evolve.
The SAP ByDesign we implemented at Baldinger Bakery provides ability to measure yield, efficiency, and downtime. This helped to improve production run times, were able to fine tune recipe/formula that helped yield the quality and plan better to minimize production disruptions/downtimes. Provided customer/product profitability reports allowing them to focus on the profitable products and customers.
The bakery’s story started in 1888 when Henry and Rebecca Baldinger opened up their first bakery and started to grow a following. In the next few decades, the Baldinger’s moved to a bigger location to accommodate their continuous growth. The business evolved in different ways. They started providing different bakery items, the option for delivery and with their growing staff, quick turnaround rates. But it wasn’t until 1957 that changed the future of the bakery. The Baldinger’s grandson, Bob Baldinger received the opportunity to expand the business even further by working with Minnesota’s first McDonald’s and providing them with buns. A business venture that would take a major shift in operations. Creating thousands of buns is not an easy task. The need for a system that helped all entities of the company was imperative.
When we asked Dane what his favorite feature of the system is, he said, “having the ability to access the system on my phone from anywhere, has made things a lot easier for me and the team.” SAP Bydesgn is a cloud-based system with minimum IT infrastructure and can be accessed from anywhere as long as you have internet. The information availability helped make decisions faster and collaboration within the company increased since everyone was using the same system.
One thing is for sure, the bakery has retained the same employees for many decades. One employee in particular that has been there since 1983 is Barb Gonsior. Barb started working for the bakery right out of high school. She has been working in accounting ever since and has used several different systems throughout the years. But it wasn’t until she started using our SAP system that really changed the game. Barb uses the system to create contracts for buying commodities. She also draws different reports each month and uses the data to figure out the future forecast.
The bakery has grown to about 130 employees and expands to all regions in the Midwest. Even though the bakery has evolved into an innovative and large corporation, one thing stays consistent, a passion for quality and commitment to their customers.
Image credit: Baldinger Bakery