From Breakdown to Breakthrough: Industrial Kiln & Dryer Finds Success with Odoo

In the industrial world, when critical equipment fails, production halts, and companies face potentially substantial financial losses. For businesses that depend on rotary kilns, dryers, and ball mills, this downtime can be especially costly. Industrial Kiln & Dryer Group (IKD) steps in to support these businesses, providing rapid, expert services to keep rotary equipment operational.

Based in Louisville, Kentucky, IKD is deeply involved in the rotary equipment industry, offering services ranging from manufacturing new kilns and ball mills to assisting clients in refurbishing existing machinery to meet compliance standards. They also design and sell specialized tools that enable companies to service their own equipment.

For those unfamiliar, rotary dryers are large, slow-turning barrels that dry materials as hot air passes through them, a process essential for industries like food processing. Rotary kilns are high-temperature cylinders that heat and transform materials, such as turning raw clay and sand into cement components. Ball mills, on the other hand, are large rotating drums filled with heavy balls that crush materials inside, commonly used in mining and construction. IKD’s expertise spans across all these areas, handling a wide range of rotary equipment needs. The company also launched IKD University, offering hands-on training for customers to work directly with the machines. Above all, IKD takes pride in delivering exceptional customer service.

By working with rotary equipment, IKD has established relationships across diverse industries, including food and beverage, textiles, cement, distilleries, breweries, and fuel. Given the unique requirements of each sector, almost every project is customized, allowing IKD to adapt and refine its methods based on industry-specific knowledge gained from each job.

In recent years, IKD’s success has grown, building a loyal customer base both nationally and internationally. However, as the business expanded, the old management systems couldn’t keep up. IKD needed software to streamline complex workflows while being easy for its long-tenured team to adopt. This is where Odoo entered the picture.

Lost in the Paper Trail

Leslie Neidig, Projects and Development Manager at Internetek (IKD’s sister company and IT support provider), witnessed the challenges IKD faced before implementing Odoo. Previously, IKD relied on a patchwork of spreadsheets, standalone applications, and Sage CRM. With many employees accustomed to manual methods, the reliance on traditional processes became a bottleneck as the company grew. Proprietary information was stored in individual desktop folders, leading to scattered data and requiring employees to locate specific desks to retrieve needed information. This decentralized approach led to data mishandling, frequent misplacement, and sometimes, data loss altogether.