There are nearly always problems with IT and timber,” said Alan Hamilton, of software supplier Progressive Solutions.
He has a point. Wood’s not like clothes, cars or electrical goods: it’s a living, breathing commodity and one that, for conventional software systems, is simply too hard to handle.
Timber is a great example of an industry that’s influenced by the product – and its many different issues. “There’s an incredibly complex buying and selling process with timber, including huge lead times, variable quality and enormous transport costs, all of which affect the price of the product,” said Ian Bendelow, business development director at Kerridge. “The fact that you buy by one quantity, stock by another and sell by the yard doesn’t help. These issues are so particular to timber, that a non-specific system just couldn’t cope.”
The UK market for timber-specific software falls into two camps: those that provide dedicated operational software (which includes Progressive Solutions, Ten-25 and Kerridge) and those that supply timber engineering packages like Consultec and Alpine Automation.
For these select few, there are a number of key trends dictating the way the software is evolving, not least the fact that customers want more from their systems, as Consultec managing director Jason Ruddle explained: “Customers are becoming more demanding. They are all looking for something different, whether that’s framing techniques or design issues: if they’ve invested in software, they want it to do what they require.”
Consultec provides timber frame and flooring software, which enables manufacturers to create design schemes and provide full manufacturing information, whether it’s for material schedules or links to frame machinery or optimising equipment.
Mr Ruddle said one of the key challenges was staying ahead of competitors, which it aims to achieve through twice-yearly and customer-led updates, as well as a strict pricing policy. “We have been developing this product in the market for 14 years, and it took us a long time to become the market leader: once you’re there, there are always people looking to take over.”
Competitor Alpine Automation has a range of products that all work off its aIMS database. aIMS is at the centre of Alpine’s hub, from which runs its VIEW and PANEL VIEW roof truss packages.
“Everybody wants integrated software, which means the whole of roof truss, timber frame, floor joist and management, all in one suite,” said Alpine managing director Patrick Martin. “It’s not an easy thing to provide, but it’s what the market is demanding. Companies want software that will run their whole businesses.”
This integration will make life much easier for timber companies. “If you have separate packages to do these things, you obviously have to learn different styles of software,” said Mr Martin. He expects Alpine to be delivering the full integrated package in the new year.
For operational software or ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system providers, the key issue currently centres on using Microsoft‘s Windows platform – and it’s one that divides suppliers. “The market seems to be obsessed with going for Windows-based systems,” said Ten-25 director Ian Oldrey. “We’ve developed a new Windows front end for our system, but very deliberately kept a UNIX back end, because it’s far more efficient, quicker and reliable as a commercial operating system. A lot of people are blindly going into Windows systems, and there are a lot of misconceptions out there.”
Ten-25 has installed new alerting software into its system, which means that rather than being reactive (such as producing reports overnight), it watches and when a company runs out of stock, for example, automatically sends an e-mail to the stock controller. “It’s making the system a lot more proactive in terms of helping timber companies run their business,” said Mr Oldrey.
Meanwhile Kerridge, whose customers include builders merchants such as Jewsons and timber merchants MLM, Howarths and Snows, provides a system that looks like Windows, but uses different technology that it considers more appropriate for a timber business.
“You don’t use Microsoft technology to deliver a business solution, because it’s a PC-based application: you don’t want to reboot your business system when you have people at the counter,” said Mr Bendelow. “You need a more resilient environment.”
But Progressive Solutions’ Alan Hamilton disagrees. He believes the main reason people change systems is to get something that is modern. “Traditionally, all the systems in this industry have been character-based as opposed to Windows-based,” he said. “People who are changing systems are moving to Windows-based operations, which suits us because, until very recently, we had the only Windows-based system for the timber market. We’ve probably got 50 new customers in the last three years because of this change.”
The company’s Timber Track software is being implemented throughout Weyerhaeuser‘s North American operations, while in the UK its customers include Timbmet, Crown Timber, James Jones & Sons and Howie Forest Products. The company has also developed its own merchanting system, bisTrack, which is used by companies such as Arnold Laver and James Latham.
Whichever way you look at it, IT is revolutionising the timber industry and the pace of change is increasing.
“Timber businesses are constantly innovating and the fact that the market is so tight, is forcing businesses to find ways of cutting costs and becoming more efficient,” said Ian Bendelow. “This is forcing the industry to evolve and, as a result, we need to evolve with it.”
