Russell Roof Tiles (RRT) has invested over £100,000 in technology over the past 12 months, as part of its continued commitment to increasing production efficiencies and strengthening its customer service.
The manufacturer has invested in a number of initiatives, using the downtime created by the national lockdown in the spring as an opportunity to review and refine its strategic plans. Many of these initiatives have also supported the business' Covid-19 safety projects, creating streamlined, paperless systems.
Russell Roof Tiles has just completed the final stage of a three tier investment programme in enterprise resource planning (ERP) that has touched on virtually every aspect and department of the business.
This latest upgrade will enable the business to achieve administrative cost savings and provide technical platform for further digital transformation across the business.
RRT has already made substantial savings in time by switching to electronic invoicing and adding QR codes to its proof-of-delivery documents. This, in conjunction with a fully integrated Document Management system has enabled complete remote access to customer orders and account information, including computer-aided design (CAD) drawings. In addition, long-range production planning and maintenance management have helped automate the purchasing of parts to boost efficiencies and reduce downtime.
These ERP investments have been led by Russell Roof Tiles inhouse IT Manager Chris Bailey who joined the team last year. The scope of his role covers every IT touchpoint for the business across its three sites and every member of its 140 strong team.
Bailey commented: “As well as ERP we’re also been investing in our business intelligence (BI) solution for some time. We’re currently rebuilding this to position it to be flexible to future requirements and more agile in providing useful insight to the business.”
The most recent examples of the delivery of new IT infrastructure include significant changes to Purchase Order creation and management, and Production Job Order entry and management. These two areas are particularly focused on improving the processes for the production team.
Russell Roof Tiles investment in new and improved telephony also assisted the business during the Covid-19 pandemic – enabling more successful remote working.
Andrew Hayward, Managing Director at Russell Roof Tiles, said: “Investment in technology is hugely important in manufacturing today and to us as a business. We still have further work to do and will be launching further innovations in the new year which will be focused on customer experience.”
