Summary
¦ Woodbridge’s previous systems gave it limited visibility.
¦ Integrating the company’s trading and accounts processes was a key requirement.
¦ The software has eased workloads when staff are away during summer holidays.
Scott Anderson is celebrating the smooth implementation of bisTrack software at Woodbridge Timber where he is financial director.
Given that the company moves up to 2,000m³ of timber every day, he was understandably nervous when bisTrack went live earlier this year, as continuity of operations was critical to Woodbridge and its customers.
“Implementation was achieved with absolutely no disruption to day-to-day trading” he said. “It was a joy! Now I’m looking forward to working proactively with the system towards the benefit of the company and having bisTrack doing much of our admin for us.”
Woodbridge Timber was set up in 1976 as a timber importer and over recent years the company has seen tremendous growth, with volume sales exceeding 550,000m³ in 2008. Although the majority of timber is bought for the traditional “landed-stock pick-a-pack” service from the company’s terminal operations in Hull and Rosyth, in some cases it is sourced for direct delivery from sawmill to the customer.
Historically the company supplied full lorry loads of truss and CLS timber to roof truss and timber frame kit manufacturers, but an expanded product range now includes carcassing, redwood, battens, fencing products, sheet materials and glulam beams. This, combined with the capability to deliver part loads or even single packs, represents a much improved service for its traditional customer base as well as new sectors such as timber and builders merchants. Service is further enhanced by the availability of timber treatment services at both terminal operations.
Old systems
When Mr Anderson joined Woodbridge, it had multiple systems and databases for phone, fax, trading and accounting which made it difficult to maintain data, gather business intelligence and move the business forward.
“Our old systems did what they were designed to do perfectly well and our annual volume sales grew from 250,000m³ to over 550,000m³ during the time we were using them,” he said. “However, we wanted a system which integrated the trading and accounts processes to save us entering data twice, to give us transparency over a customer’s credit exposure, to improve reporting over the whole buying and selling process, and to give us a platform to facilitate continued growth, along with the ability to benefit from new technology. We had limited visibility over the bigger picture of our operations and we needed more.”
Mr Anderson started looking for a new integrated business management system but soon discovered there was nothing which gave him all the functionality he needed. However, after meeting Progressive Solutions, he was drawn to working with a company that was well established in the timber industry and that could offer a stable platform from which to build on. “I didn’t want to have to change software again in another few years and my primary aim was to find a stable platform – even though it was clear that modification work would be required.”
Transparency in sight
Working closely with the Progressive team, Mr Anderson specified modifications to bisTrack, including an integrated fax solution between Woodbridge and its logistics partners. The company now uses the Navision accounts package which interfaces smoothly with bisTrack and, from day one, the team are seeing the transparency they wanted over sales and credit exposure which Mr Anderson says is crucial in the current climate.
He is already benefiting from increased efficiencies in the company’s purchasing and stock functions, improved communication with logistics providers, reduced time spent invoicing and improved reporting capabilities. In addition to the obvious efficiency savings, these benefits have also eased the workload in the summer months when staff have been on holiday.
In the future Mr Anderson may implement further components of the bisTrack product. “Getting the software up and running was very much stage one. Now that has been achieved, we can look at the options available to us and move our systems and our business forward to meet our needs and those of our customers. A large number of our customers use bisTrack so we hope there may be synergy for all of us.
“My main aim continues to be simplifying our administration processes and I believe bisTrack will help us achieve that. I want my team to spend their time doing what they’re good at, rather than being bogged down in admin.”
