Hercules Industries is a 60-year-old, 100% employee-owned heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) wholesaler, distributor, and manufacturer operating across seven states. The organisation had grown into a complex operation spanning 24 retail locations, three distribution centres and five manufacturing facilities. Like many businesses at that scale, process inefficiencies had accumulated over time in three key areas: order fulfilment, cash collection and accounts payable (AP). It knew the problems existed. What it didn’t know was exactly where to look, how much those inefficiencies were costing or how quickly they could be fixed. That changed when they deployed Infor™ Velocity Suite alongside Infor CloudSuite™ Distribution Enterprise.
Within 60 days, Hercules had moved from manual, reactive problem-hunting to proactive, data-driven process improvement, and the results speak for themselves:
- 80% faster process issue identification
- 88% fewer resources required for process issue identification
- 50% faster payment collection
- 71% increase in cash flow
The challenge: Knowing something is wrong—but not where
Hercules knew it had problems—customers were receiving late invoices, accounts receivable (AR) and AP teams were struggling to reconcile accounts, and there was a persistent inventory allocation issue it could feel but not explain. What it lacked was a fast, reliable way to see exactly where things were breaking down and why. Identifying issues required assembling teams of three to four people for days, or even weeks, of manual transaction review. By the time problems were surfaced, employees often couldn’t remember the details. The business was operating entirely reactively.
The challenges faced before Infor Process Mining:
- Customers were receiving late invoices and incorrect inventory information, leading to collection issues and dissatisfied customers.
- AR and AP departments were struggling to reconcile accounts, with finance staff spending 4–6 hours weekly on manual corrections.
- A significant inventory allocation issue was impacting operations, but the underlying cause remained unclear.
- Investigating issues required teams of 5–6 people to spend 8–10 hours per week reviewing transactions, and some problems still went unresolved.
"We have a few different challenges in our day-to-day operations. Infor Process Mining helped us determine where we were losing time—and then how we could either automate that, improve the process or improve training. That's where we found the most value."
Casey Splane
ERP Support Analyst
The solution: A guided path to proven value
Hercules chose Infor Velocity Suite, starting with Infor Process Mining to optimise its order-to-cash workflows. The approach was methodical: let the data speak first, then act with confidence. Casey Splane, Hercules' ERP Support Analyst, described the moment it first ran its data through the system:
Casey Splane
ERP Support Analyst
This is the hallmark of a guided path to value. Infor Velocity Suite doesn't just surface data—it delivers prebuilt, out-of-the-box insights tuned to distribution and manufacturing workflows. Hercules didn't need specialized data science teams or lengthy configuration cycles. Infor experts handled the implementation from start to finish, and the first actionable insights arrived in under 30 days.
Actionable insights: ROI delivered in under 60 days
Infor Process Mining keeps surfacing opportunities, and the right response to each one is different—sometimes a process change, sometimes training, sometimes software automation like invoice processing automation for procure-to-pay and sometimes an artificial intelligence (AI) agent that helps users find information faster to make better decisions. Three specific improvements stand out:
1. Fixing the cash collection process
Infor Process Mining revealed that 98.8% of payments were arriving after their due date and that several warehouses were missing the final step of the invoicing process entirely. Rather than a systemic failure, it was a training and visibility gap. Hercules corrected the workflow, issued targeted training and stood up a task force across all 24 locations. Average payment delays dropped from 24–36 hours to 12–15 hours, cutting monthly delayed cash exposure by 71%.
2. Resolving a misdiagnosed fulfilment problem
When 60% of orders appeared late in the system, the instinct was to blame the shipping team. Infor Process Mining told a different story: The root cause was upstream—inventory allocation tied to systematically overdue customer orders. Hercules built a new Infor M3 workspace to visually track overdue orders and implemented application programming interface (API)-driven monitoring to close or reallocate them automatically.
3. Launching a pricing optimisation initiative
Infor Process Mining surfaced that sales and order entry staff were spending disproportionate time manually overriding pricing—time that came directly at the expense of customer-facing work. Hercules launched a company-wide pricing matrix redesign across all seven regions to reduce the frequency and time cost of manual price changes.
Continuous value: Built to grow with Hercules
Looking ahead, Hercules is already deploying invoice processing automation and is among the early adopters exploring Infor’s 55-plus AI agents released in the April 2026 update, with a clear philosophy in mind.
Casey Splane
ERP Support Analyst
Ready to start your own guided path to proven value?
Visit Infor.com to learn how Infor Velocity Suite with Infor Process Mining can help your distribution or manufacturing business identify inefficiencies, accelerate cash flow and build a repeatable foundation for continuous improvement.
Mona Patel
Industry & Solution Strategy Director, Infor