Canadian software company Progressive Solutions Inc has launched a new sales operation to boost its business in the UK timber trade .
Progressive Solutions International Ltd is based in Glasgow and will spearhead a sales drive across the UK. It will market a variant of Progressive’s established North American software, Lumber Track, specially designed for the UK market. The UK version is to be called Timber Track.
Since its launch in the late 1990s the software is said to have become the ‘leading analysis tool for the timber and forest products industry in Canada and the US’.
Timbmet, the UK’s largest hardwood merchant, is the first British company to plan for installation of Timber Track, and Progressive Solutions is confident it will win growing volumes of business on the back of its key features. These are claimed to include its ability to provide more accurate and real-time information on stockholding, sales, shipments and purchasing. The operating system also uses Windows-based screens.
Les Williams, Progressive Solutions president and chief executive officer, said: ‘We’ve seen heightened interest from the UK as timber companies prepare for the anticipated increased production levels. They are looking for ways to boost productivity without adding cost or staff and our software will help them.’
Mr Williams said that the US system had required fine-tuning to adapt it for the UK market – for instance substituting words such as ‘despatch’ and ‘timber’ for ‘shipping’ and ‘lumber’.
Progressive says its software solutions are suitable for the sawmill, panel, remanufacturing, distribution and wholesale industries for domestic and export markets.
Installation of the Timbmet system began in May and is expected to be complete by November or December.
Timbmet chief executive Simon Fineman said that Timber Track is ‘to become Timbmet’s third competitive advantage alongside unrivalled stock and the expertise of our people’.
