The life of a window – profit opportunities from order to installation
Many elements are involved in window projects from sales to installation lean management software can help streamline every part of the process, cutting out extra steps and reducing errors to make your company as efficient and profitable as possible.
Cyber sales and surveying
Profitmaker’s PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) aid the installer at point of sale. Colin Crothers, Sales Director at James Harcourt (Northern Ireland), the national home improvement installation company explains: “A sales rep can visit a homeowner and immediately produce an accurate price and print off a professional estimate. The PDAs are linked using Profitmaker.net to an updated price list so margins are instantly checked and orders can be closed that day”. When the surveyor comes round measurements are taken with a PDA, sending accurate figures straight to production for planning before they’ve even left the site!
Super-slimming manufacture
The Style Group use Profitmaker software throughout manufacture. Safestyle, the retail arm, enters contracts directly into the Profitmaker database while the trade-facing division, Tradestyle and its customers, can enter orders online through Profitmaker.Net. Safestyle programmers have written their own software for managing orders, made possible by Profitmaker’s “open” codebase and database system. All orders are then processed at Windowstyle, the manufacturing arm. Paul Jagger, Software Developer at Windowstyle UK Ltd explains: “The immediate ordering facility coupled with thorough technical error checking and order date constraints means we don’t get any surprises. Using the software, we run reports over the range of jobs which lets us know how many lengths of profile or hardware types are required and deduct them from our stock management system. This also generates a report of materials needed to ‘top up’ our minimum stock levels.”
Profitmaker’s Production Monitor can track every frame and glass unit - their barcode label is scanned at each work centre to track every part during fabrication. Paul Jagger explains: “This system gives our manufacturing process endless advantages. We can see any upcoming peaks in labour so we have time to plan around them. In an emergency, we can ‘pull’ remake or urgent frames through the system using the prioritisation tools.”
Because it is an open system, Windowstyle’s own programmers can write programs using all the facilities of the production monitor. They have written a “Visual Manufacturing” module that runs at the factory gearing work centre. This program listens for barcode swipes and displays the relevant work instructions graphically to the operatives.
The final piece of the jigsaw
Once put together, the product doesn't hang around in the factory to get accidentally damaged. Factory space is used efficiently as it's sent out Just In Time for the installer to start work. “We’ve recently developed ‘Stillage Tracking’ with Profitmaker that allows us to record our frames onto stillages. The stillage is tracked, from various operation points onto the wagons and when it’s received by our delivery depots.” Paul continues, “Production Monitor updates the status of the jobs from ‘in production’ to ‘despatched’ in both Profitmaker Office and Profitmaker.Net, so we can tell our customers their goods are on the way.”