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JB Tooltech specialise in the supply of air power and hydraulic tools and systems. JB is a first class, quality supplier to  many of the largest names in the automotive and manufacturing industries. The organisation recently migrated to Tencia.
 
Stephen Stanley
General Manager
 

JB Tooltech is a privately owned Australian Business and a market leading supplier of assembly tools and accessories to the manufacturing and automotive industries. With a National distribution network throughout Australia, JB Tooltech specialise in the supply of air power and hydraulic tools and systems. JB prides itself on being a first class, quality supplier to many of the largest names in the automotive and manufacturing industries including Toyota and the Ford Motor Company.

With in excess of 65 years in the industry it’s no surprise that their business is recognized for their deep technical expertise of pneumatic and hydraulic systems, their strong customer service and exceptional understanding of detailed and complex customer requirements. Eager to improve their margins and gain greater transparency of their overall costs, JB Tooltech began to assess their existing internal processes. The business was keen to get a clearer understanding of their costs and margins and to gain a deeper insight of their customers in order to further improve their service offerings.

“We were looking to create greater efficiencies for the business, we understood that there was room for improvement particularly when it came to stock receipting and that our supply chain operations could be strengthened further. We experienced some setbacks in the past with our Accounting software so it was crucial that the migration process to Tencia was successful and that the new software solution delivered real results and efficiencies for our business,” explained JB Tooltech’s General Manager – Stephen Stanley.

When JB Tooltech decided to take the next step and move to Tencia a key requirement for them was working with a Business Partner that really understood the complexities of their distribution business. “We were looking to partner with someone who had a good understanding of our business and our industry, a partner that had a genuine interest in helping us enhance our internal processes. Initially their Arrow Business Partner’s desire to really understand our operations made them stand out from the crowd. We’d made a significant investment in our previous accounting solution so it was imperative for us that the new software solution was a success. We knew that having the right partner was a fundamental element to the success of the project,” said Sue Stanley, Chief Financial Officer.

After a relatively trouble free migration across to the new system, Stephen, Sue and their team were able to see some real improvements. Stock receipting had been a particularly labour intensive task in the past however Tencia had alleviated many of the obstacles they faced previously. “Our Arrow Business Partner has been great.They have helped to really turn things around for us and helped to add value to our business. Our staff are really happy with the new system, they have found it easy to use,” explained Sue.

According to Stephen, it was more difficult to identify stock availability quickly and easily in the past. “There were instances where we were not sure what was on back order.This made it difficult to quickly turn around customer enquiries regarding stock availability. Tencia has really changed things for us we are seeing some significant productivity efficiencies as a result. Previously it would take us up to two days to complete our stock receipting and now with Tencia its been reduced to about an hour.”

In addition to the time saving efficiencies gained, staff members have been freed up to focus on other areas of the business now that the process has become less labour intensive. “The efficiency gains in terms of time and resourcing have been tremendous,” said Stephen.“In the past we had two staff members receipting stock in some instances, now it’s so much faster and we only need one staff member to perform the same task. Recently we also set up the Electronic Banking interface in Tencia and that saves us a lot of time too. Our bookkeeper Dalya is delighted which the change,” he says.

JB Tooltech was also looking for greater portability with their new solution so Tencia was loaded onto all of the sales team’s iPads. The system is accessed via a remote desktop connection which enables the sales team to perform stock inquires and look up pricing information quickly and easily while they were on the road or at a client site. “Having information like customer sales histories at their fingertips and being able to quickly look up pricing information or the status of an order, or stock availability has been invaluable to the sales team, they have really embraced the change and are pleased that the real time data in Tencia is available to them via their iPads while they are on the road,” explained Stephen.

“Tencia has made a big difference to our business we can easily manage stock quantities, generate quotes and purchase orders and we have access to flexible reports with live company wide data.Having these reports on hand means we can pin point key performance areas for improvement. I can run a daily Profit and Loss report to see Gross Profit and see Sales information for the month whenever I choose. I can see what’s going on in the business at any point in time,” explains Stephen.

JB Tooltech is keen to see how the accounting system performs when they run their first stock take in the coming months. “It will be an opportunity for us to get an even deeper understanding of Tencia and see what the system is really capable of”. He says.