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Within a stone’s throw of the hallowed turf of West Auckland
AFC, mighty conquerors of Juventus in football’s first World
Cup of 1910, is one of the leading suppliers of bespoke
cladding products. |
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Working extensively with
clients, architects, designers, contractors and cladding
specialists, AKV architectural Fabrications of Shildon can
boast an impressive portfolio of projects ranging from the
Newcastle United Stadium, to a host of high street names
such as Comet and B&Q. |
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Since the early 90’s AKV has
built up a solid reputation for delivering an increasingly
diverse and specialised portfolio of high quality,
competitively priced products and services. |
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In the ultra competitive world
of cladding, success comes down to three things…price…
delivery… and… quality. |
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Matching client requirements
with the ability to competitively deliver means that no two
jobs are the same. And because no two jobs are ever the
same, no two estimates are ever the same. |
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Increasingly frustrated by the
amount of time and effort that was being spent generating
estimates, using tools such as spreadsheets and accounts
software, Beau Stevens the managing director, and Dave
Knowles the production director, both agreed that
simplifying this bottleneck would return handsome dividends
for the company, its staff and customers. |
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The problem was…where would they
find such a tool. |
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Unconvinced that a substantial
and painful costly upgrade to their accounts software would
eliminate the headache, Beau and Dave contacted Database
Software Solutions, who had just completed an estimating
project for a local cladding contractor. |
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Now bespoke cladding
manufacturing and cladding contracting are two different
fields, but at least it was heading in the right direction. |
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After a number of meetings
outlining how AKV quoted for bespoke cladding work, and
being impressed by how quickly Database Software Solutions
grasped the massive amount of variations that go into
generating an estimate, Beau and Dave reached the only
logical decision they could. |
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If your business is bespoke,
you need a bespoke estimating tool. |
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The feature rich tool that Beau,
Dave and Database Software Solutions jointly built has
dramatically simplified and streamlined a critical and
fundamental process of how AKV do business. |
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The program’s capability
includes quoting for such product categories as: |
- Flashings
- Waterproofed galvanised
gutter
- Insulated galvanised
gutter
- Aluminium rainwater pipe
- Insulated aluminium
gutter
- Single skin aluminium
gutter
- Single skin galvanised
gutter
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- Trim line gutter
- Trim line rainwater pipe
- Membrane gutter
- Corners
- Butt straps
- Straight bull nose
- Rainwater piping joints
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Credit Control
Built in credit checking at the quotation stage has given
the directors fingertip control on ensuring that outstanding
monies are chased promptly and efficiently. Credit control
is tracked and managed from the enquiry all the way through
to delivery. |
Deliveries
Charging for deliveries is a fickle business in the world of
bespoke cladding manufacturing. Clients don’t want to pay
for it and industry wafer thin margins means manufacturers
cannot give it away for free. With the system working on
predetermined rules, the estimator is now given flexibility
on how it is presented on the quote. Either way management
are assured that in all instances it is charged for. |
Management Reporting
For Beau and Dave, being able to see where they are winning
and losing in the estimating department, is a solid
yardstick of how their business is performing at any moment
in time. The old way of measuring was to key information
into a number of Excel spreadsheets. The only problem with
this was that it usually took 3 days and, they will readily
admit, it didn’t happen religiously. |
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Now this 3 day chore is reduced
to 1 hour… with guaranteed accuracy, and without gobbling up
important valuable staff time. |
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Instant key reports include: |
- Estimates to Follow up
- Estimates by Month
- Estimates by Customer
- Sales by Work Type
Ratios
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Marketing Capability
An important part of the business is ensuring that the
people who can directly influence the use of AKV products
and services are regularly updated. Seamless integration
between the estimating database and Microsoft Word means
that mail shots are childlike simplicity. Integration with
email means it doesn’t cost anything. |
Overall Benefits
When asked to summarise the benefits the system has
delivered to AKV, Dave’s enthusiasm shines through when he
talks about the three big ones: |
- A 20% speed improvement
in terms of estimate production. More time means more
estimates get done, and with more estimates comes more
orders. The big plus is that people get the time to do
things right, because technology has taken the strain
out of a large number of tasks that used to eat up time
and resources.
- Consistency is a big
plus, because every estimate generated is based on the
same rules. Built in checks ensure that mistakes,
omissions, or folly pricing, don’t happen.
- Reduced errors, because
nothing is forgotten about, which means no double
checking. Select a category, and all the associated
costs are built in. For example; powder coatings.
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Continues Dave “in a nutshell,
it has made the job of quoting for work easier. Because of
this it has given both Beau and me far greater control in
one of the most important areas of our business”. |
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“However, we both agree that
Stage 2, when we extend it to add in stock control, document
management, purchase ordering, sales ordering, and
deliveries, is where we will see even bigger returns”.
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“By having a company wide system
where everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet, and
where from one screen you can drill down and see the full
picture of a customer order from the enquiry to invoice, is
going to make us so much more efficient and productive.” |
For further information on
Database Software Solutions
Limited
see
www.roofinfo.co.uk/dbasesolutions |
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AKV can be contacted at:
AKV Architectural
Fabrications Limited
Hackworth Industrial Park,
Byerley Road, Shildon,
County Durham,
DL4 1HF, United Kingdom
W:
www.akvlimited.com
Tel: 01388 775489
Fax: 01388 776517
Contact: Dave Knowles - Production Director or Beau Stevens
- Managing Director
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