Overview
HempLucid, a premium organic hemp wellness brand with nearly a decade of industry leadership, faced a critical operational challenge: their existing inventory management system, Luminous, couldn't support the stringent compliance requirements, complex manufacturing processes, and multi-channel operations needed to compete in the highly regulated hemp and wellness space.
When this Utah-based manufacturer with organic certification requirements, multi-stage liquid manufacturing, B2B and D2C sales channels, and rigorous lot tracking needs sought a modern ERP solution, they discovered how purpose-built manufacturing and inventory software could transform their entire operation, reducing audit times from 4 hours to 45 minutes and achieving pick-pack error rates well under 0.1%.
The company's previous systems had created significant operational bottlenecks:
- Manual Compliance Tracking: Hours spent manually exporting and cross-referencing data for organic certification audits
- Limited Lot Traceability: Inability to quickly trace ingredients through multi-stage manufacturing to final customers
- Inaccurate Costing: Landed cost tracking failures and unit conversion errors, creating millions in valuation discrepancies
- Multi-Channel Complexity: Bugs preventing accurate inventory updates across multiple Shopify stores
- Manufacturing Limitations: Systems unable to handle variable liquid formulations
Nathan Beckham, CEO and Co-Founder, knew they needed a robust solution. "We've been a premium brand and product innovator in the hemp wellness space for almost 10 years," Nathan noted. "We're known for our organic formulations and manufacturing. We needed a system that could handle that complexity without compromise."
The Challenge: When Compliance Meets Complexity
Hours Lost to Manual Compliance Reporting
As an organic certified handler and manufacturer in the heavily regulated hemp industry, HempLucid faces inspections 2-4 times per year from multiple agencies. Brandon Orgill, Executive Vice President and COO, explained the previous reality:
My last organic inspection with our previous system took me about four hours. Instead of being able to click through, click here, click here, follow hyperlinks everywhere, I had to download this, export that, sort that in Excel over and over again.
— Brandon Orgill, Executive Vice President & COO
The manual process created:
- Extended audit windows taking valuable management time
- Risk of compliance violations due to incomplete data trails
- Inability to quickly respond to inspector requests
- Manual cross-referencing across multiple spreadsheets and systems
Lot Tracking That Didn't Track
For a company producing ingestible wellness products, accurate lot tracking is mission-critical. Brandon described the frustration: "A lot of other software, either they didn't handle lot tracking, or they didn't handle it well enough. A lot of that information was technically there within the system, but it wasn't very visible. So if ever it came time for an audit, the process took five times longer than it needed to."
Manufacturing Systems That Didn't Understand Liquids
HempLucid's multi-stage liquid manufacturing process proved to be a breaking point for lightweight inventory systems. Brandon explained: "In our industry, we're doing a lot of liquid manufacturing, so our inputs can vary from batch to batch. That was a hang-up for a lot of systems because they wanted to make a bike (you know, two wheels and one frame), and we're not making a bike. Sometimes I've got 2.5 wheels, and their systems didn't quite like doing that and didn't know how to handle it."
The Cost of Inaccurate Costing
Brandon recalled a particularly frustrating issue: "I've run into software where they kept having conversion error issues. We might be buying something in kilograms and consuming it in grams. And all of a sudden, it thinks my product cost me $2 million to make when it cost me $2. That's an actual issue I ran into."
Multi-Store Nightmares
As HempLucid scaled to serve both B2B and D2C channels through multiple Shopify stores, their previous system buckled. Nathan explained: "As soon as we added the second store, it didn't really want to send updates to that store. We had to manually update certain stores, and that defeats the purpose if you're an inventory management software system."
Data Corruption and Lost Production Records
Perhaps most alarming was the instability of their previous systems. Brandon described one particularly painful incident: "They pushed a software update that deleted six months of our production records. And they couldn't find a fix for it. So I had to go back to all my hard copies for everything."
The Decision: Why HempLucid Chose Fulfil ERP
After cycling through multiple systems, including Stitch Labs, Cin7, and Luminous, HempLucid needed an eCommerce ERP that could handle their unique combination of requirements without compromise.
Purpose-Built for Complex Manufacturing with Compliance
Unlike generic inventory systems designed for simple operations, Fulfil understood HempLucid's reality from day one.
Brandon noted: "Fulfil offered a lot of expansion into multi-store operation, the quality of the manufacturing capabilities, multi-stage manufacturing, the reporting. There was a lot of awesome little things there that we were able to take advantage of, really built right into our organic manufacturing certifications and handling, and it was necessary to meet those requirements."
Nathan emphasized the compliance advantage: "It's very easy if you have issues to backtrack stuff through the system. Fulfil's ERP reporting is superior. That can help in CPG manufacturing, especially in the wellness or supplement space, where you have to deal with a lot of tracking, inventory management, and lot coding. You're giving out ingestibles. You need to make sure that your software is tracking all that legitimately."
Traceability That Actually Works
HempLucid needed to trace every ingredient through multi-stage manufacturing to final customers in seconds, not hours.
Brandon explained the difference: "If I wanted to do a full lot tracking on different products with other software, all that information was there, but it was like, okay, I have to go export this, I've got to go export that, I've got to export this. Just to see all the information. In Fulfil, I can just click, click, click. And I've got access to everything top to bottom in a matter of seconds."
He continued: "You can easily backtrace every ingredient that's used for every single product and go, this customer got this product, which had ABC and DE ingredients in it. And I received all of those on these different POs on these days. You can just tie everything together so perfectly that from a compliance standpoint, it is a game changer."
Manufacturing That Understands Variables
Fulfil's flexible bill of materials and work order system could handle HempLucid's variable liquid formulations without forcing workarounds.
Brandon noted: "The flexibility on the manufacturing side was crucial. In our industry, we're doing a lot of liquid manufacturing, so our inputs can vary from batch to batch. Fulfil understood that from the beginning and built systems that could handle it."
Accurate Costing and Inventory Valuation
After experiencing systems that couldn't handle unit conversions, HempLucid needed confidence in their financial data.
Brandon explained: "One of the other big things that's been very nice with Fulfil that has been an issue with other things is accurately tracking landed costs for all of our products, having costing across everything straight through the system. Anybody who's had to handle any of this on their own knows it can be a little bit of a nightmare making your own sheets and everything."
He added: "Fulfil just handles that perfectly. I've never run into conversion errors or massive valuation issues."
Multi-Channel Excellence
After struggling with systems that broke when adding a second store, HempLucid needed true multi-channel order management and inventory management capabilities.
Nathan explained: "We have a B2B and a D2C sales channel. We've got other brands we represent. Being able to adapt and be agile as the industry and the company changes, adding these specific different ways to make revenue — previous systems just weren't effective at that. With Fulfil, we were able to make that work quite easily, getting that data across back and forth and setting up the different safety stocks for each channel. Fulfil put a lot of thought into that."
See related: Fulfil x Shopify ERP Integration
Best-in-Class Warehouse Operations
Nathan's experience with Fulfil's warehouse capabilities remains a benchmark: "With the scan guns, we're able to print, pick, pack and ship orders within one minute, if not even faster, at peak demand. I don't think I've ever seen a system at any facility be able to handle what we're doing. Phenomenal setup."
He continued: "We set up a process that was better than anybody on the market. And I stand by that. We have the lowest pick pack errors ever, well under 0.1%."
The Implementation: Thorough, Strategic, and Collaborative
Having experienced multiple system implementations, Nathan recognized something different about Fulfil's approach.
Nathan contrasted Fulfil's implementation with others: "Other software onboarding can be very templatized, very quick and very pushy to get through some stages. First, the sales handoff and then you're like, wait a minute, the onboarding is much different than what we talked about. With Fulfil, the team flew out to understand exactly how we could be a good fit for each other. I was very impressed with the amount of time and nuance we spent going through the whole scope to ensure everyone was aligned, and that important edge cases were documented for the onboarding process to be effective."
Brandon explained what made Fulfil's ERP implementation different: "Fulfil's implementation process is very thorough, which is a breath of fresh air because they're asking questions, getting things lined up to make sure that they have processes built out that match my particular needs and also suggesting ways to save me time."
See related: Why We Visit Merchants Onsite: Real Impact Beyond the Screen
The Impact: Efficiency, Confidence, and Scalability
5x Faster Compliance Audits
The most dramatic impact came during organic certification audits.
My last organic inspection that I did with Fulfil, I was able to do the entire thing, the software side of things, in a little under 45 minutes. My most recent piece of software took me about four hours. They're asking the exact same questions, verifying the exact same information.
— Brandon Orgill, Executive Vice President & COO
He explained why: "Fulfil's a huge time saver on that. Instead of download this, export that, sort that in Excel over and over again, everything is just hyperlinked and connected. You can follow the trail instantly."
Complete Ingredient Traceability in Seconds
Brandon described the new reality: "I've got access to everything top to bottom in a matter of seconds."
He contrasted this with previous systems: "A lot of other software, if I wanted to look at production planning, I had to export multiple different things and then kind of put stuff together myself. If I wanted to do a full lot tracking on different products, all that information was there but it was like, okay, I have to go export this, I've got to go export that, I got to export this."
Production Tasks 5x Faster
Brandon noted the daily efficiency gains: "Something I can do in Fulfil in probably a minute might take me five minutes outside of Fulfil. In little chunks, it doesn't feel like a lot, but it certainly adds up."
He continued: "Once you've got everything set up and in place, running production takes seconds, minutes max for something that might take significantly longer in other pieces of software where it's also harder to verify if there were any data entry errors."
Near-Zero Shipping Errors
Nathan emphasized the impact on fulfillment accuracy: "We have the lowest pick pack errors ever, well under 0.1%. We're shipping orders faster than 3PLs. We set up a process using Fulfil's warehouse management system and their guidance that's better than anybody on the market."
Elimination of Manual Reconciliation
Brandon reflected on recovered time: "I used to spend a lot of time tracking down issues that were caused by other people who were using the software because the software didn't behave the way they thought it was going to behave. Without all the tracking that Fulfil has natively, sometimes it was quite a bit of a headache to figure out what was going on, where things went wrong, and why my count's off here, and who did that. That amount of savings are really hard to quantify, but it is significant."
Trusted Financial Data
After experiencing systems with million-dollar valuation errors, Brandon appreciated the accuracy: "Fulfil just handles costing perfectly. I've never run into conversion errors or massive valuation issues. I can trust the financial data coming out of the system."
Scaling Without Breaking
Brandon highlighted the scalability: "The ability to plug somebody into Fulfil once they know how things are supposed to work, you kind of taught them the flows, they can pick it up very easily and the time saving on not having to deal with user error issues is pretty massive."
He added: "Fulfil has the ability to scale and do so many things. Maybe I don't need a capability right now for my stage where I'm at with my business, but five years down the line, this is still going to work when I'm doing 10X the volume."
Looking Forward: Building for the Next Decade in Hemp Wellness
For a company operating in one of the most regulated industries in consumer packaged goods, choosing the right ERP wasn't just about operational efficiency, it was about enabling continued growth without compromising on compliance, quality, or customer service.
Nathan reflected on the industry context: "We're here in Utah, one of the wellness capitals of manufacturing or supplement manufacturing in the United States. There's softwares out here, multiple people, and seeing what everyone's trying. But Fulfil has been the best that we've ever used."
Brandon emphasized the partnership value: "Everybody I've ever talked to at Fulfil, top to bottom, has been super nice, super professional, super respectful. They're very good at identifying what your need is, identifying what the problem is, letting you know timelines on getting stuff fixed, implemented, done, and following through. That's pretty rare when you're dealing with software companies."
Brandon's advice to other brands: "You get what you pay for. There's a lot of pieces of software out there that have on the surface the base capabilities that you need. Figuring out the real capabilities and how it really is going to function is a massively important part of the process."
Nathan concluded: "In CPG manufacturing, especially in the wellness or supplement space, there's a lot of tracking and inventory management and lot coding requirements. You're giving out ingestibles. You need to make sure that your software is tracking all that legitimately. Fulfil helped us gain our Organic Handler certification, which is not an easy thing to do. After everything we've tried, Fulfil is the best system we've used."
See related: From Luminous to Fulfil: COO Calls ERP Migration a Career Highlight