Knowing what you know now, would you do it again?
“Yes – absolutely.”
What would you say to others thinking of working with Transfirm?
“Don’t wait – jump onboard – it’s hugely beneficial”
CASE STUDY
Polyaire is an international manufacturer of quality equipment for HVAC systems, supplying air filters, insulated flexible ducting, air grilles, vents and fittings. The company is managed by a team of skilled and experienced people who wanted to improve the customer experience and make work easier for staff across all 28 branches in Australia and offices internationally.
What was happening when you engaged Transfirm?
We struggled with consistency, always finding it difficult to know what was being done and what wasn’t. We wanted this to change.
We wanted to make work easier for our team and remove the inevitable friction that occurs when people rely on manual, paper-based processes. It was important for us to remove emails, and instead have a robust method for compliance and approvals.
What was the first thing you did with Transfirm?
We chose to improve our ‘Managed Returned Goods’ process. Our old process resulted in a number of damaged goods sitting in our warehouses with limited visibility of history behind the issue.
We worked with Dave & Will to map out the existing process; it was good to see the people involved, and the interaction between them. We then remapped the process to get what everyone needed in the simplest possible way. It was a team design effort, which was then digitised by Transfirm to give us what we have now.
Now if we see a damaged good in the warehouse it has a full story behind it, and everything is transparent. We ‘close the loop’ in one place, from customer to supplier, and our team has become stricter on what they are accepting back; there is full accountability and visibility. We don’t see as much product coming back anymore – unless it is genuinely damaged.
How did you feel at the time?
I personally felt excited. I could see how much easier life would be for the team and the benefits for the business. It was going to make Polyaire an even better place to work. Net positive.
What else did you do with Transfirm?
The next process we re-designed was our forklift and truck checks. This took what was a manual process with limited visibility to a new level of simplicity, with improved accountability and visibility, across all levels of the business. The teams now get an alert on the tablet, check the forklifts, sign on glass, and anything raised gets escalated and sent to a works order for repair or tag-out. We now have full accountability and have already completed 980 digital checks across 11 branches, which significantly de-risks the business and meets our WHS Obligations. It has also helped us shift accountability from our senior leadership team to branch managers.
We then re-designed our ‘Capital Expense Request’ process. It was our first national level process, rolled out to 28 branches. In the past, capital requests bounced from email to email and often never reached the finance team. Our CFO led the process redesign, and we were able to quickly get the automated process up and running. You know it’s working when you no longer hear any noise – the process just happens. It works great, and the efficiency is out of sight.
We then introduced a branch-level toolbox process that improved our previously manual method. We now have safety topics in the system that branch managers can add to. We don’t even have to remember to do a toolbox. The toolbox pops up on the supervisor’s phone, they do it, issues are raised and actioned, and everything is recorded.
From here we re-designed and digitised our rolling stock take process and order picking process. The order picking process removes any ambiguity on what the warehouse person has to pick next, and it creates a digital record of the pick with photos. This solved a big pain point of customers saying they didn’t pick up goods, when actually they did. Now we have photos of every order given to a customer.
What made the most impact?
Once our CFO was engaged and championing the process improvements we went from a regional level to a national one. The CFO’s engagement and satisfaction validated the program. That made the most impact as we now have a national approach to process improvement. The more high-level stakeholders beating the same drum, the easier it is.
We have moved from informal processes to having them streamlined, digital and contained within our management system. The management processes are built to be able to evolve as we grow, and the business is now more modern, robust and practical to manage. We are now operating at a whole new level that will meet and exceed the requirements of even our most sophisticated clients and suppliers.
Final Thoughts?
We plan on doing more with Transfirm…. Will is a legend.
Paul Witt
Sales Operations Manager – QLD / NSW
