How Elemental Container Boosted Warehouse Efficiency by up to 50%

Elemental Container didn't just replace a system; they replaced the way their warehouse runs. Moving from manual picking, zero scanning, and a clunky ERP to a fully connected Business Central environment with mobile WMS, the team is now shipping a higher volume of orders per day, with errors caught at the point of action and inventory they can trust.

On time, on budget, and built around the way real users work, here's how it happened.

• Up to 50% more efficient: warehouse teams are processing more orders per day with mobile scanning that catches errors before they become shipments.
• From frustrating to intuitive: replacing a system that requires constant manual workarounds with a platform connected to the Microsoft tools the team uses every day.
• Built for real users: an implementation partner who took the time to understand the business first and built the system around it.
• On time and on budget: a multi-module ERP go-live delivered as planned, in a field where overruns are the norm.

Who Is Elemental Container?

Elemental Container is the North American distribution subsidiary of Tournaire Group, a global leader in high-quality aluminum and plastic packaging for demanding industries. As the group's commercial and distribution arm on the continent, Elemental Container manages the full supply chain from international bulk procurement to warehousing and customer fulfillment - an operation where precision, traceability, and speed are non-negotiable.

Leading the project on the client side was Chris Miller, Director of Operations. With over a decade of experience across supply chain, planning, purchasing, and operations at companies like Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics and Astrodyne TDI, Chris has lived through four ERP implementations from the user side. He knows what a good rollout looks like, what a bad one costs, and exactly what questions to ask. When he joined Elemental Container in May 2025, fixing the ERP was on his agenda from day one.

The gaps were hard to ignore: no scanning, no lot tracking, no real-time visibility, and a platform that made every day work harder than it needed to be.

A Warehouse Without the Right Tools

Sage X3 had history at Elemental Container, but history isn't the same as fit. By the time the decision was made to move on, it was clear the platform was creating more work than it was solving.

Sage X3 had no mobile scanning. No tracking. No real-time visibility into what was on the shelf.

For a warehouse-first business receiving high-value bulk shipments from overseas, that's not a minor inconvenience; it's a daily operational liability. The core issues were hard to ignore:

• A warehouse running on hope. Without scanning or real-time transaction capture, the team was picking, packing, and shipping based on manual processes and best guesses. Wrong lots, wrong quantities, wrong items caught after the fact, if caught at all. For an operation where warehousing represents 95% of the business, the margin for that kind of error is razor thin.
• A system built for frustration. Sage X3 wasn't just limited; it was actively cumbersome. Getting useful information out of it meant data dumps, endless spreadsheets, and lookup chains just to answer basic operational questions. Nothing linked together naturally. For a team that needed to move fast and trust their numbers, it was the wrong tool entirely.
• Disconnected from everything else. In a business already running on Microsoft 365 every day, maintaining a completely siloed ERP added unnecessary friction at every turn. The tools didn't talk to each other, and the team paid for that gap constantly.

The answer wasn't to patch what was broken. It was to build something worth trusting, a single, connected platform designed around how the warehouse runs, not around what a system can do out of the box.

That's where Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central came in.

Microsoft Business Central, Built for Distribution

Elemental Container made a clean break moving to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central as its core platform, with Warehouse Insight by Insight Works providing true mobile WMS functionality natively inside the same environment. The implementation was led by Yannick, Senior Business Central Consultant at Gestisoft, who guided the project from discovery through go live.

The architecture was designed with two priorities in mind: delivering a fully operational distribution and warehouse foundation for Elemental Container today and laying the groundwork for the next phase.

Business Central was deployed as the single system of record across Elemental Container's North American operations. This wasn't a partial rollout; it was designed from the start as the mandatory foundation for everything that follows, including the advanced WMS capabilities, the assembly module, and the future InovaWeld deployment.

Phase 1 Delivered: A Full Operational Foundation, Live on Day One

Five core capabilities delivered in a single phase - finance, inventory, warehouse execution, tariff management, and order processing all live on May 1, on time and on budget. No shortcuts, no compromises, no second chances needed.

Finance: One Structure, One Source of Truth

• A unified chart of accounts across both North American entities
• Standardized Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable workflows
• Intercompany transaction management and consolidation

Inventory & Distribution: Know What You Have, Where It Is, and What It's Worth

• Full inventory transaction and valuation management
• Inventory period closure aligned to financial periods
• Sales order management end-to-end
• Physical inventory count managed entirely in-system

Warehouse Execution: Real-Time Control on the Floor

• Mobile scanning via Warehouse Insight by Insight Works covering shipments, receipts, picking, putaway, physical inventory, and transfers including bin management
• Purchase Orders and Transfer Orders used for container management
• Assembly module live for kitting operations

Tariff & Pricing: Flexible Enough to Keep Up with the Market

• A dedicated tariff table built to handle duty and tariff logic that comes with importing bulk lots from overseas designed as a user-editable table, not buried in code, so the team can adapt to changing tariff conditions in real time without developer involvement
• Custom price-list capabilities tailored to Elemental Container's specific selling structure
• Full traceability from tariff application through to the chart of accounts

Not everything was in scope for Phase 1 and that was by design. Directed Pick and Directed Put away were deliberately held back, keeping the warehouse execution model lean and focused on what the business needed at go-live.

What Changed on the Ground: Key Benefits and Capabilities with Microsoft Business Central and Gestisoft?

Replacing an ERP is only worth it if the business runs better on the other side. For Elemental Container, the shift to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central with Gestisoft didn't just replace old software; it replaced the way the business operates day to day.

From the warehouse floor to the finance team, here is what has changed.

Inventory & Distribution: Knowing What You Have, Where It Is, and What It's Worth

For a distributor receiving high-value goods in large bulk lots from overseas, inventory is a financial concern as much as an operational one. A discrepancy between the system and the shelf doesn't just create picking errors; it distorts valuation, purchasing decisions, and financial reporting all at once.

Business Central replaced that uncertainty with structure and auditability at every step:

• Full movement traceability: every receipt, transfer, adjustment, and return is captured with a document, a period, and a cost attached. Nothing moves without a record.
• In-system physical counts: inventory counts are managed end-to-end inside Business Central, replacing the disconnected, spreadsheet-based process that made period-end reconciliation so slow and error-prone.
• Financial alignment: inventory periods are now aligned with financial periods, meaning the values flowing into the income statement and balance sheet can be trusted.
• Lot and bin control: every item is tracked by lot and location, giving the team a level of precision that was simply not possible in Sage X3.

For a business where a misjudged replenishment on a long sea-freight lead time means either a stockout or excess capital tied up on the floor, having inventory data you can rely on isn't a nice-to-have, it's the foundation that every purchasing decision is built on.

Warehouse Execution: From Guesswork to Up to 50% More Efficient

With Warehouse Insight by Insight Works providing true mobile WMS functionality natively inside Business Central, warehouse activity is now captured at the point where it happens not reconstructed after the fact.

No separate scanning system to maintain, no lag between what the floor does and what the system knows, and no room for the kind of manual errors that plagued the old process.

• Up to 50% efficiency gain: the team is processing a higher volume of orders per day than before go-live, despite adding scanning steps to the process. Fewer double-checks, fewer corrections, faster throughput.
• Errors caught at the point of action: if a warehouse operative scans the wrong item, the wrong lot, or the wrong location, the system stops them on the spot. The problem is caught before it becomes shipment.

The first full physical inventory count is scheduled for year-end — and it's a milestone the team is looking forward to rather than dreading.

Finance & Accounting: From Data You Untangle to Data You Can Act On

Before Business Central, getting a clear financial picture at Elemental Container meant manual work first, analysis second. Month-end close was a reconciliation exercise before it was anything else.

Business Central changed that:

• A clean, structured chart of accounts: balance sheet and P&L in one unified view, without additional manipulation.
• Standardized AR/AP workflows: consistent, disciplined processes that reduce manual handling and keep things from falling through the cracks.
• A foundation for better reporting: clean, consistent data flowing through the system gives Elemental Container the groundwork for dashboards and financial visibility that supports decisions.

The first month-end close on the new system is now underway — and for the first time, it starts from a single, trusted structure rather than a reconciliation exercise.

Tariff & Pricing Management: Built Around How the Business Actually Buys and Sells

For a distributor sourcing internationally, tariffs and pricing aren't edge cases: they sit on the critical path of nearly every transaction. And in today's environment, where tariff conditions can shift with little warning, having a system that can keep up isn't optional.

Rather than work around a generic template, Gestisoft built the tariff and pricing logic directly around how Elemental Container operates:

• A dedicated tariff table: duty and tariff logic for international bulk imports is handled in a structured, purpose-built table that covers every transaction from receipt through to the chart of accounts.
• User-editable, not code-dependent: the tariff table is fully visible and editable by the team, with no developer involvement required. When tariff conditions change, Elemental Container can adapt immediately without delays, without rewriting code, without calling anyone.
• Custom price-list capabilities: pricing structures tailored to Elemental Container's specific selling model, currently being refined to match exactly how the business goes on the market.
• End-to-end traceability: tariff application flows through the entire system, from the purchase transaction all the way to financial reporting.

In a business where tariff conditions can shift with little warning, having a tool the team can update themselves in real time, without friction, is the difference between reacting slowly and staying ahead.

Gestisoft x Elemental Container: The Partnership That Made It Work

Behind every successful ERP implementation is a team of people who care enough to get it right.

On this project, that meant Chris Miller and his team at Elemental Container, Yannick as lead Business Central consultant, Frédérique as project lead, and the Gestisoft team working behind the scenes: Trevor, Dina, Georges, Samuel, Marie-Solange, and Patrick each playing their part in making May 1 happen the way it did.

A well-configured ERP doesn't happen by accident. It happens when the right people take the time to understand a business deeply enough to build something that fits not just something that works in a demo.

That's what made the Gestisoft and Elemental Container engagement different.

A Consultant Who Started from the User

Yannick, Gestisoft's lead Business Central consultant on the project, brought something that's rarer than it sounds in ERP implementations: he started from the warehouse floor and the user's desk, not from the system manual.

Too many implementations are run from behind a monitor. This one started from how the business operates what the warehouse team needed to do every day, how tariffs flow through to the chart of accounts, how pricing needed to work in practice, not just in theory.

Understanding That Showed Up in the Build

That user-first approach wasn't just a project management philosophy it showed up directly in what got built. The tariff table exists because Yannick listened closely enough to understand exactly how international purchasing worked at Elemental Container and then built a tool the team could own and update themselves.

The price-list customizations exist for the same reason. The warehouse execution model was designed around how the team picks and ships not around a default configuration.

The result was a system built for the people using it every day, not around what looked good on a project plan.

Results That Speak for Themselves

When an implementation is done right built around the users, configured around the business, and delivered with the discipline to stay within scope, the results aren't abstract.

They show up on the warehouse floor, in the financial reports, and in the confidence of the team using the system every day.

For Elemental Container, the outcomes of Phase 1 are concrete and measurable:

• Up to 50% improvement in warehouse efficiency — more orders processed per day, with errors caught at the point of action before they become shipments.
• Inventory the team can trust — lot and bin control, real-time capture, and period-aligned valuations that connect directly to financial reporting.
• Financial clarity from day one — a clean chart of accounts, standardized workflows, and a month-end close that starts from a single trusted structure.
• A tariff management tool built for today's reality — user-editable, real-time, and connected end-to-end through the system.
• On time and on budget — a multi-module ERP is delivered as planned, in a space where overruns are the norm.

The numbers matter but so does what's behind them: a client who knew their business inside out, and a team that built around it.

A Foundation Built to Last

The results of Phase 1 are meaningful on their own — but they're also the starting point for everything that comes next.

May 1 was a go-live date. But what Elemental Container and Gestisoft built together is more than a system launch. It's the operational foundation; everything that follows will be built on. Phase 2 brings manufacturing, MRP-driven planning, and procurement intelligence. The InovaWeld deployment follows.

All of it starts with the clean, trusted data and the well-built platform that the Gestisoft and Elemental Container teams put together.

For a distribution business where the margin for error on a large international purchase or a major customer order is narrow, having a platform you can trust and a partner who built it around you is not a luxury.

It's the foundation that everything else is built on.