Integrated performance through custom innovation
Aztech recently undertook a challenging project to automate the calculation of the selling price for a door manufacturer. While making standard sized doors with standard construction, the business manufactures and sells more custom doors than they do standard.
How complex can a door be – you would be surprised!
The issue
Prior to the implementation, calculation of the selling price was handled manually with a staff member involved for several hours each day, entering the details onto each customers invoice. Referring to various manual prices lists (depending on who the customer was) staff matched the customer’s door requirements to various parameters to arrive at the selling price.
The task was taking several hours per day with the potential for the odd mistake when values were not calculated correctly, customised components missed or transposition of numbers occurred.
While not part of our original brief, once we realised the importance, the time required and the capacity for errors to occur, we felt we had to do something to streamline this process.
After a full investigation of the scope of the task and documenting what was required, we set about creating additional information in the database; similar to the price book which could be maintained by employees.
The result:
Now the price can be automatically determined at order entry time. A custom door stock code is used, then several attributes particular to each door are added such as Door Design, Skin Type, Core Type, the number of Steel inserts and of course Height and Width. With a savvy routine that Aztech constructed, the system takes the data entered and then looks at all the different attributes and calculates the price automatically.
The customised routine has assisted with the generation of quotes, which can be quickly and efficiently emailed out to their customers. Special prices are also provided for, should they wish to provide the customer with special price outside of their price books.
Weight and cubic measures are automatically calculated and printed on packing slips, again as a result of entering the various attributes (as above) when creating the order. Prior to the implementation of their new system this was also a manual process, taking staff many hours a day manually calculating the weight and cubic size of each despatch.
What have we saved?
Reduction in incorrect pricing, significant time savings for staff formerly involved in the manual process and immediate system updates when pricing structure changes. No more paper-based price books that get out of date; staff are confident they are working with the latest prices and margins are protected by an automatic price calculator that is simple to use and maintain.
A great example of customised software contributing to efficiency and the bottom line.