For Caspers Ice Cream, rapid growth exposed the limits of its legacy ERP environment. As the 101-year-old food manufacturer expanded from a regional operation into a national frozen novelty brand, teams needed faster access to the production, inventory, logistics, and financial information required to run the business. But the company’s Microsoft Dynamics NAV system had become a bottleneck.
“We hit a bottleneck with our capabilities and being able to track all of those things with our previous system. And so the upgrade to Business Central became a very necessary step to grow with our business,” said McLain Knutson, Caspers’ IT Manager.
The challenge was not limited to IT infrastructure. Reporting gaps made it harder for leaders to trust what they were seeing in production, waste, costing, inventory, and financial reports. “We were starting to identify gaps in the data and what we could pull with our reporting and knew we had to upgrade,” said Shane Petersen, Caspers’ COO.
Those gaps affected daily execution. In logistics, manually posted orders delayed inventory updates across Caspers’ national network, creating a three- to four-day lag in information. That lag put planning teams in a difficult position because they were making production decisions without a current view of inventory and demand.
“Our planning team would make incorrect decisions which would affect what they plan to produce on the line,” said John Kujawa, Caspers’ Logistics Manager.
Caspers needed more than a system upgrade. The project became a legacy ERP modernization effort tied directly to growth, visibility, and operational consistency. The company needed a modern ERP platform that could connect reporting, inventory, production, logistics, finance, and warehouse operations while supporting its next phase of growth.
Building a Food Manufacturing ERP Platform with Dynamics 365 Business Central
Caspers selected Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central to implement an ERP platform designed for the realities of frozen food manufacturing. The project connected core processes across procurement, raw goods, production, packaging, warehouse movement, logistics, accounting, planning, and forecasting-giving teams a more consistent system for managing work from material intake through customer delivery.
The implementation also introduced capabilities critical to Caspers’ operating model, including food manufacturing functionality, warehouse mobility, quality management, standard costing, and improved data structure. The data migration from NAV to Business Central gave Caspers a cleaner foundation for reporting, inventory, costing, and operational visibility.
Why Caspers Chose JourneyTeam
Successfully implementing a modern ERP platform requires more than technology. Caspers wanted a partner that could help modernize operations, support employee adoption, and ensure the system aligned with the realities of a growing food manufacturing business. JourneyTeam provided that combination of Business Central expertise, food manufacturing experience, and hands-on partnership throughout the implementation.
JourneyTeam helped Caspers deploy Dynamics 365 Business Central for food manufacturing while creating more connected processes across finance, inventory, warehousing, purchasing, production, logistics, and reporting. The implementation extended beyond finance, reducing disconnected workflows and helping teams operate from unified data.
A key focus of the project was user adoption, with an emphasis on collaboration, training, change management, and employee engagement. These ERP user adoption strategies helped employees understand not only how the new system worked, but why the changes were important to the business.
“It was very important that we brought everyone along with us, that they were involved in that process,” Knutson said. That focus created greater consistency across the organization while supporting a smoother transition to new processes and workflows.
By combining modern food manufacturing ERP software, a carefully planned NAV to Business Central migration, and a strong commitment to user adoption, JourneyTeam helped Caspers build a connected operational foundation that supports growth, visibility, and future innovation.
Jan Hofer (CFO) said JourneyTeam distinguished itself by working side-by-side the Caspers team while remaining steadfastly focused on business outcomes. “They were really walking in our shoes.”
Real-Time Visibility Drives Better Business Decisions
The NAV to Business Central migration gave Caspers faster, more reliable access to the information needed to run a national frozen novelty business. Instead of waiting on delayed or inconsistent reports, teams could use current data to guide production, inventory, logistics, costing, and financial decisions.
Before Business Central, reporting gaps made it difficult to trust that operational data reflected what was actually happening across the business. Production, waste, financial, and inventory reports were all essential, but the process of accessing and using that information was too slow for a growing manufacturer.
“The types of data that we look at on a daily basis that we pull from Business Central were production reports, waste reports, financial reports – all crucial, obviously, to helping us make key decisions to run the business and run it in the right direction,” said Shane Petersen, Caspers’ COO.
Business Central, standard costing, and Caspers’ redesigned data warehouse now give leaders more granular insight into cost, profitability, and performance.
The main advantage we have with Business Central is speed. We have the right information available at the right time to make the right decisions.
– Jan Hofer, CFO
That visibility also connects departments that once operated with less context. Purchasing can see material needs, production can see what needs to be made, shipping can see what needs to reach customers, and finance can evaluate performance with clearer cost data.
For Caspers, real-time visibility became a practical operating advantage: better production planning, stronger inventory availability, tighter cost control, and faster decisions across the business.
Improving Warehouse Efficiency, Inventory Management, and Customer Fulfillment
For Caspers, the biggest warehouse gains came from turning disconnected, manual steps into a more consistent flow from forecasting and production planning through freezer storage, staging, shipping, and customer delivery. With Dynamics 365 Business Central for food manufacturing, warehouse teams gained clearer visibility into what needed to be made, where finished product was located, which lots were assigned to each order, and what needed to move next.
Before the implementation, warehouse employees often had to work around NAV limitations. Cycle counts depended on printed paperwork, lot tracking was difficult to trace, and manual order updates created delays between what was happening on the floor and what teams could see in the system. That made it harder to confirm inventory accuracy, identify product shortages, and coordinate the handoff from production to warehouse teams.
Daily warehouse transactions became far more standardized with Business Central. Instead of employees troubleshooting different exceptions each time, warehouse movements now follow a more predictable process. Product can be produced, packaged, scanned into the freezer, staged for shipment, and tracked through fulfillment with better visibility into the transaction history behind each movement.
According to Kevin Glodo, Caspers’ Warehouse Manager, that consistency changed day-to-day work for warehouse employees. “There’s way more predictability in the results we’re getting,” he said. “The ability to train and work with our employees through each transaction is much more consistent.”
Improved lot tracking also strengthened inventory management and customer fulfillment. In a frozen food environment, Caspers needs to know which product is going to which customer, confirm the right lot is tied to the right license plate, and protect product integrity through delivery. Business Central gives teams a clearer way to review who made a transaction, why it happened, and how to resolve questions when they come up.
The same visibility improved order management. John Kujawa, Logistics Manager, said Caspers had previously spent at least 15 hours a week manually updating orders in NAV. With Business Central, those updates are no longer a clerical burden. “We can pretty much eliminate all manual steps that existed before in NAV,” he said. “Now it’s more value added.”
By connecting inventory, production, and order information in one food manufacturing ERP software platform, Caspers can identify shortages earlier, communicate what production needs to make for each customer order, and move product through fulfillment with fewer manual touchpoints. That gives logistics, warehouse, and production teams a shared view of what is coming before and after each step.
“We’ve been able to see the product that we’re short, know what we need to have made for each customer’s order, and we’ve been able to deliver that on time and in full more often than not,” said Kevin Glodo, Warehouse Manager.
Scaling for Growth and Future Innovation
For Caspers, the move to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central was about more than solving today’s challenges. “What BC has done for Caspers is allowed us to scale and take on more as we’re growing, where NAV before was the bottleneck,” Kujawa said.
Today, Dynamics 365 Business Central for food manufacturing serves as the operational backbone of the company, supporting finance, manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, inventory management, and reporting across the organization.
Caspers is positioned to take advantage of emerging technologies. With operational and financial information centralized in a single platform, the company has established a stronger data foundation for automation, analytics, and AI-driven capabilities.
“This modern system helped us get beyond those borders and boundaries and open up the way for us to move forward at the pace and the rate that we needed,” Knutson said, adding that Caspers is exploring Copilot in Business Central.
The company has already begun using automated bank reconciliation, while continuing to evaluate additional opportunities to streamline business processes and improve productivity. As Microsoft’s innovation roadmap evolves, Caspers now has a platform capable of adopting those advancements without requiring another major ERP transformation.
Ready to Modernize Your ERP?
Whether you’re planning a NAV to Business Central migration, looking to improve cost visibility, or preparing your business for future AI innovation, JourneyTeam can help you create a modern ERP platform that supports growth, operational efficiency, and better decision-making.
Reach out and learn how JourneyTeam can help modernize your operations with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central.