We did a case study on a brand new Procurementexpress.com customer, Léhan van Rooyen, GM and CFO of Oliver Retreads. Procurementexpress.com is about to save this factory a lot of time with the purchasing process.
What is the value proposition that your project needs to succeed every time?
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.”
Tweet this: A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life
― Charles Darwin, The Life & Letters of Charles Darwin
Everything in life needs a center of balance or what I call “heart”. Without “heart” everything in life would just be grazed on the surface with no essence or lasting quality. Your project would be like any other half-baked effort in life. A construction project is not like a quickly-thrown-together shopping list! It should last in people’s minds through centuries.
Have you ever thought of your Purchase Order System as the nerves of your project or business, the spoke that never breaks? If you really pay attention to the words you are about to read, you can reduce the destructive factors decaying your project success probability.
Oliver Retreat Tyre Group has retreading factories based in Somerset East and Port Elizabeth with state of the art machinery. Pieter Snyman, the owner, wanted to develop a tyre retreading company with its own identity and one that had a national footprint. Since 1965, Oliver Tyro Group has extended from where it began in Somerset East, to all over South Africa, providing all types of tyres from the smallest passenger tyres to the largest earthmover tyres.
Please explain your current purchasing order process?
- “We use Pastell Accounting Software which has purchase order functionality, but not everybody has access or are allowed access to it.
- An order requisition is made out on a internal PO.
- The purchase order is filled out. Only a signed order requisition from all departments are accepted.
- An order is written out in our triplicate order book and we use the purchasing price on the order.
- We then send the order to the supplier. We receive an invoice from the supplier.
- The order then goes from paper to the system.
- The GRV’s (Goods received voucher – invoice that clients make out to Oliver retreads) are then loaded into the system.
- From there I can find it on the system.
- There are two people completing the order but there are lots of people working with the order.”
What problems are you experiencing with this paper-based system?
- “Matchup shortcomings – order numbers not made out. Sometimes the invoice has not yet been received but the tyres are already delivered. This raised an issue for the delivery note or POD note.
- The same thing happens on the maintenance side, the order is given, the order number issued and the delivery note disappears.
- Orders placed without an order form being filled out can go up to R50 000 – R80 000.
- Sometimes people make mistakes with prices on the orders too.”
How many order books do you go through a month?
“We use one and a half books a month that cost us about R100 a month and every book has 100 pages.
We are looking forward to using a paperless system as our paper-based system was too much admin to handle.”
Have you ever searched for an automated PO solution?
“No, not really. The business was started on a paper based system and we have always just worked on that.”
When was your ‘Aha’ moment with Procurementexpress.com?
“One of my colleagues Andre, was phoned by Procurementexpress.com and a Demo was booked for the 11th of November 2016. There was an onsite visit by your agent Marlein where she met with Andre, who is 
leaving the company. Andre informed me about the product, I got more information about Procurementexpress.com via the Demo by your product specialist Richard.
We thought at first that an online Purchasing Order System was not necessary for our company and would not make a difference in our company, but after the Demo, I realized that this system is exactly what we need to save time and in turn save costs on our factory side. At the end of the day, it could mean more time for profit margins or time to spend on any other aspect of the business.”
Which part of your company will benefit from Procurementexpress.com?
“Procurementexpress.com will help on our factory’s receiving side by attaching all needed documentation i.e. the order, delivery note or even a photograph of the deliverables immediately before order is approved.
It will also save us costs on our phone bills because if something is needed urgently, we have to phone continuously and the receiving system of Procurementexpress.com will make this an easier task.
This is priceless.
This study goes to show that an automated Purchasing Order System like Procurementexpress.com will save you time and money in the long run, even if you use an accounting system like Sage. It holds your project together so you can have that extra bit of time to make sure your projects last forever.
Watch this space for the follow-up interview with Lehan after 6 months of using Procurementexpress.com.
If you would also like to make your purchase order process to be a strength and not a weakness, sign up here: Procurementexpress.com.
