ROI case study: Redzone from QAD at Sauder Woodworking

Nucleus found that Sauder Woodworking realized a 665 percent ROI with a 7.0-month payback period after deploying Redzone from QAD. The manufacturer faced delayed visibility into production, inconsistent shop-floor data capture, and limited ability to act on performance issues during the shift, resulting in a reactive operating model across parts of the shop floor. By deploying Redzone across Productivity, Compliance, Reliability, and Learning, Sauder improved labor productivity, increased overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), reduced maintenance and inventory carrying costs, and strengthened frontline execution. The deployment also gave operators and supervisors real-time visibility into hourly performance, helping the organization use shop floor data as a continuous improvement mechanism rather than a delayed reporting layer. Quantified benefits included approximately $4.8M in annual avoided labor impact, $400,000 in annual maintenance savings, a $3M reduction in inventory carrying costs, and a 76 percent reduction in e-commerce out-of-stock units. Looking ahead, Sauder plans to expand the value of Redzone by building on its use of ChampionAI and exploring tighter alignment between scheduling and shop floor execution.