Negotiating prices en route to supply houses, retailers, lumber yards, fencers and big box home centers is business as usual for Capital Forest Products during their busy season.
With industry factors like daily product pricing updates and new demands from customers, the 40+ year-old distributor began looking for ways to integrate and simplify processes. To start, their old systems were outdated. Old character-based screens were causing some customers to be placed on hold while salespeople entered orders. Duplicate paperwork and note transcription were causing trouble as the office got busier. Instead of just focusing on their customers, employees had to make frequent trips to the fax machine to send, receive and check status.
Moore changed to DMSi’s Agility software in the fall of 2000, motivated by a desire to improve productivity and handle their expanding customer base. The switch was the fourth in the company’s history, but the first to offer industry-specific advantages.
“Handling sales orders 30% faster and more accurately has improved our chances of gaining more business,” said Moore. “We’re completing sales orders with less than half the number of screens, and that helps us handle growing transaction volume without adding support people.”
On direct shipments, Capital Forest Products can enter an order, create a purchase order, bill a customer, and pay the mill in one step. A multidimensional data warehouse provides a view of sales activity from multiple angles, revealing a wealth of information about current and historical customers, sales agents, and product performance.
“Anything the future holds for DMSi, we want to be a part of.”
Moore is quick to point out other advantages of Agility. Unique features convert quickly between every conceivable unit of measure with one click. Orders can be faxed or emailed from the desk, and Agility’s freight dispatch feature simplifies transportation arrangements and allocates costs based on weight, loads, or footage, eliminating hand calculations.
For Moore, complete integration means 99% accuracy on the general ledger and fewer struggles to balance it.
“I’ve seen software packages come and go,” said Moore. “The reason we switched to DMSi Agility is because they’re on the front end of technology, helping us address all the needs of our business and, more importantly, our customers. Anything the future holds for DMSi, we want to be a part of.”
