Brendan Cassidy is the General Manager at PlastaMasta Sunshine Coast, a supplier of plasterboard and other building materials in south east Queensland.

Brendan knew that the despatch process at the Maroochydore site could be improved. Despite his skilled and dedicated team, time was being lost:

• • Office and warehouse services weren’t communicating effectively and opportunities were being missed.
  • The system was dependent on one person deciding the day’s delivery schedule, whereas Brendan wanted that knowledge to be communicated to all his staff.
  • Delivery runs were not as efficient as they could be and customers were not being informed of when to expect their deliveries. In addition, sales staff were not aware of available capacity.

Brendan contacted CNAE to see if we could help.

CNAE considered and recommended against the purchase of a well-known off-the-shelf despatch package; it was too generic, extremely complex to set up and prohibitively expensive.

Instead, CNAE coded an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface to coordinate orders received by the office and despatch from the warehouse. The software tool enabled the warehouse team to build the delivery runs in advance and email all office and sales staff of the next day’s run. This advance notice enabled sales staff to fill capacity, and all staff to use SMS to inform customers accurately of expected delivery times.

Today, the increased efficiencies are felt by all PlastaMasta staff with the result that the company’s essential daily activities – orders and despatch – now run smoothly and efficiently.

Here’s how Brendan reflects on the situation:

“I knew that what was happening in the delivery side of our daily activity was a hindrance to the business. Only the warehouse staff knew which orders were going where and when, which meant they had to be involved in almost every order, as well as taking calls about the timing of a particular delivery.

CNAE built us a system through computer programming whereby we could communicate the warehouse manager’s knowledge throughout the team. This led to all our staff being able to see when we had available capacity and when we were at capacity and to plan and respond accordingly instead of just reacting like before. It also meant any member of staff – in the office or in the warehouse – could help customers who phoned to check on their deliveries.”

To talk to CNAE about how a programming solution might enable your business to prosper, contact John: jd@cnae.com.au | 0438 113 358 | (07) 5436 9777.