With a need to maintain growth and achieve even higher standards of customer satisfaction, Arrow found the best supply chain management solution with Strategix.

“With upwards of 100 installation sites on the go in any one week, all around the country, the biggest challenge is to have all the stock on hand and lined up in an orderly queue ready to be called off and installed without any delays or mistakes,” states Tony Cassey, operations director at Arrow Distributors. As the country’s leading specialist contract distributor of white goods, Arrow Distributors meets these challenges with consummate ease these days, thanks to OneOffice from Strategix.

Arrow Distributors supplies white goods, fridges, ovens, washing machines, etc., to the building trade. They do this extremely efficiently from a national distribution centre just outside Worcester that is handy to the M5 and the national motorway network. Worcester, in turn, feeds regional ‘satellite’ warehouses that store the relevant appliances closer to each job. It is from here that the installers collect each day’s consignment to be taken on site and installed when the building contractor says which home is ready to receive them.

Tony Cassey, continues: “The trick is to have the right stock at the right location at the right time. This means, we need a fail-safe supply chain management system that offers the guarantee of stock availability for a hundred and one different appliances – whether on a multi-plot building site in Devon – or a barn conversion in the Peak District.”

Tony Cassey first considered a total system overhaul in 2003 when the business realised that the old system of stock control simply wasn’t keeping up with the complexities of Arrow’s far-reaching and multi-layered supply chain. He approached several of the recognised players in the automated supply chain management field and whittled them down to a shortlist of two. What sold Cassey and his team on Strategix was the company’s understanding of their business and the ability of the Strategix solution, OneOffice, to meet their requirements.

“It’s frightening how some vendors still wanted us to change our business to fit their system,” Cassey lamented. “So when a solution such as OneOffice comes along, that combined total flexibility with comprehensive functionality, we were swept off our feet. Strategix could tailor OneOffice to fit our business – not the other way around.”

OneOffice is a new generation of supply chain management software that combines all aspects of an operation into one view that encompasses operations, finance, customer management and event management. This provides real-time information, such as availability of a product line or a revised delivery date, to relevant personnel as the events occur. The result is that human error is eliminated and a transparency is achieved that ensures faster, more accurate and more informed decision-making.

OneOffice was installed and rolled out to over 50 users throughout the Arrow operation. The system went live late 2004. Even by the end of its first operational month, Arrow was benefiting from operational efficiencies. By Cassey’s own account, the ledger function alone was much faster and more accurate than they had previously experienced with their old system. With OneOffice up and running, the finance people at Arrow spent less time preparing management accounts and gained much greater visibility of the underlying data that goes into them.

“So far, we have been using the system for all the sales order processing, stock control and requirements planning and what we are getting from the system certainly doesn’t disappoint,” Cassey affirms.

In fact, OneOffice uses a unique technology called Active Intelligence to keep everyone in the loop by providing each user with information that is both timely and relevant to the user’s role and current task - information that the user would not necessarily have known how to find, even if they knew it was there in the first place.

Another aspect of OneOffice appreciated by Arrow users is the timely ‘alert’ feature that demands human intervention if something unexpected happens. This ensures, for example, that project managers are made fully aware of changes in delivery times and in touch with real-time information throughout the supply chain.

The system also provides a ‘dashboard’ function. This is a powerful and flexible mechanism for building customised, context-sensitive information into the OneOffice user interface, WorkSpace.

For example, when a sales person selects a customer record it can automatically show the recent orders, contact notes and products ordered. This means that the information people need is always in front of them – in the form most useful and relevant to their specific roles. So if someone in Purchasing logs on, the system delivers purchasing information relevant to the vendor relationship.

Cassey confirms that one of the biggest improvements since implementing OneOffice has been in the company’s Contract Administration processes. This equates to a better service to their customers.

“It works like this,” he explains. “Once the initial work of negotiating the contract for a building project has been done, our point of contact with our customers is at site level – with the site managers. The more we can help these people and make their jobs easier and less stressful, the happier everyone is. OneOffice achieves this by ensuring the whole supply chain is geared to optimum just-in-time delivery focused on our customers’ requirements.”

This, Cassey explains, means inventory control right from the point where they place an order with any one of their vendors – such as Whirlpool, Electrolux, Neff, or any one of the dozens of leading name household brands Arrow deals with. The orders are delivered to Arrow’s Worcester warehouse, where they are logged onto the system using proprietary bar code readers that Strategix has integrated into OneOffice. Each bar code enables Arrow to identify, describe and track that item from then on. From the central warehouse, the items will then be called up for delivery to the regional depots around the country. The idea is to get the product as close to the building site as possible. Then, as each home is built and ready for fitting, the site manager calls up Arrow who arrives on time and with the correct appliances for installation.

“It can get even more complicated by the fact that different builders work in different ways,” Cassey adds. “One builder might say he is going to put white appliances in everything. Another builder will include the price of white appliances in the house price, but may give the house purchaser the option of changing to silver or coloured units. Having instant access to our inventory takes all the guesswork and delays out of the supply chain. OneOffice is providing us with that kind of flexibility.”

OneOffice enables Arrow to have a template set up for each plot on the building site against which the project managers have entered the units that were authorised when the contract was agreed. As each plot is ready, Arrow receives the order to supply and install the appliances. The sales team at Arrow can look up the template for that plot and select the stock required by the site manager from the list of authorised units available according to their make, model, colour etc. The information from this activity is recorded. It is then available to the company’s distribution planning department and automatically raises a stock requisition that activates delivery to the satellite depot nearest the building site.

Cassey claims that his next goal is to have a bar code reader with each fitting team so they can track and confirm delivery right up to installation.

Cassey concludes. “Since day one, the support from Strategix has been exceptional. We’ve built up a good relationship with their team who are always available and on-hand for advice and system ‘tweaking’. Furthermore, they regularly connect to the system and check its integrity, check the data and confirm that everything is working as it should. Thanks to Strategix and the flexibility of OneOffice, we are now able to maintain the continuing growth of our business.”

Lessons learnt
• Dealing with people who understand your business results in smooth implementation and faster ‘time to market’ for system.
• Implementing a management solution that works with your business eliminates the need to change tried and tested methodologies to accommodate the inflexibilities of the system.
• Improving information flow enables a more professional and efficient customer service.
• Information accuracy and timeliness throughout the supply chain eliminates mistakes on quotations and improves efficiency.
• Achieving comprehensive inventory control focused on customer needs results in ‘added-value’ customer service and repeat orders.