October 2011
With Agility, Lakeside Quality Building Materials Runs Business by the Numbers
With ambition, hard work, customer focus, and by utilizing DMSi’s comprehensive ERP system Agility, Lakeside Quality Building Materials has become a leading exterior building materials supplier in Upstate New York. “We run our business by the numbers and Agility helps us to do that,” Lakeside’s President, Brad Burns said. “The point is the metrics.” Using Agility, Lakeside sees great benefits by accessing historical data and using it to make impactful decisions about inventory, financials and giving order and product information to customers. Implemented in 2005, Lakeside sees Agility as the software that grows with them by enabling them to operate their branches seamlessly and centralizing all information.
In order to make the best decisions about their business, Lakeside looks to their past. They create, view, and print custom reports with real-time information for specific time frames using Agility’s powerful Visual Cyberquery feature. By looking at inventory, sales and financial information from months or years past, they can gauge where they are and where they should be. “We are able to forecast our needs better because we can look back at historical data,” Burns added. “Today, we can quickly look all the way back to April of 2005 if necessary. That history is priceless in terms of running our business.”
Using the historical information from reports in Agility, Lakeside always has a clear picture of their inventory. “In the busiest time of year, you assume that inventory is flowing and moving,” Lakeside’s General Manager, Chris Connor explained. “When you sit down and review the actual facts in Agility, you can gain clarity for where you can modify habits and inventory mix to be more appropriate for the time of year and conditions within the industry.”
The data the company has received has allowed them to streamline their most costly asset, their inventory. “One of the most significant things we have been able to do in the six years we have been on Agility is in the stratification of our inventory,” Burns said. “By assigning A, B and C items we have been able to streamline our inventory mix. It allows us to have on hand what we need, when we need it, and not have a lot of dead stock in our warehouses. It is one of the greatest tools we utilize in Agility and has been essential in these tough economic times.”
Another essential aspect in Agility for Lakeside is the multibranch features, which allows them to operate as one in terms of inventory, buying opportunities, payables and receivables. “As far as inventory transferability from location to location and combined buying opportunities, it’s both convenient and necessary,” Connor said. “One of the nicest features is having a single point for our buyer to work with when ordering for all locations.”
Accessibility is also high on the list of important features for the general manager. "Whether I'm at one of our locations, in my home office, or using a laptop while traveling, I need to be able to log in and access all customers, vendors, and inventories around the clock. Agility makes it quick and easy.”
With the ability to operate multiple branches as one, and having real-time, historical information at their fingertips, Lakeside is well-positioned for the future. Agility is built to accommodate for their growth, and to streamline the company’s most important asset, their inventory. “Lakeside looks forward to future growth and we see DMSi and Agility as a big part of it,” Burns said. “They are a great partner for us.”
For over 30 years, DMSi has been the leading business management solution for distributors of building material and forest products. Nearly 400 of North America’s top lumber, millwork, roofing, siding, laminate, drywall, and other building product suppliers use DMSi software to efficiently manage daily activities in 1,500 distribution yards, shops, warehouses and offices.
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