For nearly 50 years, DMSi has been at the forefront of innovation for inventory and order management solutions for the building materials industry. With a recent growth initiative, the company is now poised to provide the same level of innovative solutions to the hardwood industry. DMSi’s Log and Lumber Division was officially created earlier this year, as a way for the company to specifically focus on the inventory, production, and order management needs of the hardwood industry.
“Hardwood companies need software that can address their needs that are unique to this industry,” says Henry German, DMSi co-owner and President of the DMSi Log and Lumber Division. “The Log and Lumber Division’s sole focus is on software solutions equipped to handle these needs effectively.”
While just recently announced, the development of DMSi’s Log and Lumber Division was a strategic initiative nearly four years in the making. Beginning with the rollout of TallyExpress in 2018, and more recently, the acquisitions of eLIMBS and Simply Computing International and partnership with Hardwood Timber and Transportation Services; DMSi has been focused on building a team to provide a fully-integrated, end-to-end suite of inventory, production, and order management solutions to the hardwood industry.
“We were introduced to many companies in the hardwood industry through TallyExpress. They liked what we were doing, and began asking about using our inventory system. But at the time, our Agility ERP wasn’t built for what they needed,” German says. “We knew we’d need to either modify our software to fulfill the needs of the hardwood industry, or acquire an existing product and work to integrate it.”
For each product DMSi has acquired, the first step has been to build out the foundations of a team that can handle their growth plans, then begin the modernization efforts to position DMSi to be the last software provider you will ever need. As DMSi looks to the future, the focus transitions to upgrading their offerings by utilizing leading-edge technologies like artificial intelligence.
For users of these acquired log and lumber software products, there are a plethora of benefits to moving under the DMSi umbrella. For one, they get the advantage of being part of a company with more resources to provide an experienced team committed to quality customer service and continual software enhancements.
Another advantage is users can pivot their business up or down the supply chain without having to obtain a new software system. For instance, if a sawmill is using DMSi’s log inventory software and decides to expand into standing timber contracts, they could keep their current DMSi solution and simply add on the functionality needed for their business.
“With our acquisitions, our goal is to leverage what we’ve already done in the other adjacent industries we serve, and bring that expertise to the more niche hardwood market,” German says.
Acquisitions can be tricky, but DMSi has been focused from day one on ensuring a smooth transition for the customer bases of the acquired companies. In each instance, DMSi has retained talent that understands the products and has relationships with the customer base.
“We’re taking experts that have all had to solve the same problem independently in the past, and bringing them together to solve them as a team, leveraging their years as experienced designers and builders to rewrite the software onto an upgraded and widely supported tech stack.” German says.
DMSi initially expanded its investment into serving the production side of the hardwood industry with the launch of TallyExpress, which was first unveiled to the American market at the 2018 NHLA convention in Toronto. TallyExpress is a visual tally app that uses artificial intelligence to automate end tallies from a mobile phone. It turned the process of tallying lumber, which was once a tedious backbreaking manual process, into a quick, accurate and physically less demanding task through a mobile app, trained in minutes. The user base for TallyExpress was largely made up of companies in the hardwood industry, many of whom were not users of DMSi’s flagship product, Agility ERP.
At the end of 2020, DMSi acquired eLIMBS, an Ohio-based company specializing in inventory management software solutions for hardwood timber, log, and lumber operations. eLIMBS was one of the few software company’s built only for the hardwoods industry, making it a perfect contender for the expansion of DMSi’s Log and Lumber Division.
In 2021, Jason Bolstad joined the team as VP of the Log & Lumber Division. Not only did Jason have experience working for a hardwood lumber distributor (and DMSi customer), but he had 20 of years with DMSi leading development teams. “We were growing so fast we had to bring in additional help; in any team you need everyone to get the job done but we wouldn’t be where we are today if Jason hadn’t joined the team when he did,” German says.
Then in September 2022 came the acquisition of Simply Computing International (SCI). Maine-based SCI has been a leading provider of handheld inventory and voice tally software systems for the hardwood and softwood industries for more than 30 years. Most recently DMSi partnered with Hardwood Timber and Transportation Services to expand their customers’ access to the DMSi Log & Lumber software platforms.
“We were already in the distribution/retail end hardwood industry,” German says. “For us, it’s a natural progression to get into log and lumber. We’re just going up the supply chain. By providing solutions to the hardwood market, we can serve the whole supply chain from timber all the way through to the consumer.”
Looking into the future, DMSi plans to fully integrate their suite of products into one application, with various modules users can choose from depending on their company’s needs.
“Hardwoods are unique operations, which makes it fun to build software for and the people we’ve met in this industry are good, hard working people that are just trying to be as efficient as they can,” German says. “We’re excited to be able to focus on this industry and provide them with the solutions and customer service they deserve.”
Founded in 1877, Dahlsens is a 70-location LBM dealer serving large builders and independent contractors.
They provide true whole-house solutions, including concrete forms, prefab trusses, roofing, siding, plumbing, HVAC, flooring, moulding, counters, and fixtures.
Supporting complex builds in remote areas requires superior coordination. Frameworks ERP helps the Dahlsens team manage large contracts by linking and centralizing records. They can see the entire project on one screen, so it’s easier to understand the big picture and update orders on the fly.
OMAHA, NEBRASKA, March 31, 2023 – DMSi Software, an industry leader in software for the building materials industry, announces the acquisition of Millwork Development, LLC, a provider of e-catalog and configurator solutions. This extends DMSi’s portfolio of industry-specific solutions that help dealers and distributors grow and innovate their businesses.
The acquisition includes the Millwork Development E-Catalog, a quote and configuration application specializing in complex configured items such as doors, windows, and stair parts. The Millwork Development E-Catalog generates branded quotes, orders, and catalog pages, as well as composite images of the configured products.
“Millwork Development provides the leading set of tools to the millwork industry,” said Cal German, CEO of DMSi. “The innovative platform provides enhanced configuration, imaging, and eCommerce solutions. We’re excited to combine our resources to deliver the next generation of industry-leading products to our customers.”
“At Millwork Development, our mission is to leverage our extensive background in the industry with great technology to bring the best possible solutions to our customers,” said Scott Johnson, Millwork Development Cofounder and CEO. ”Joining with DMSi ensures our customers have a vibrant platform well into the future. We have been partners with DMSi for twenty years and know they share our passion for this industry as well as our high standards for taking care of customers and employees.”
For Immediate Release
DMSi is proud to announce that it is launching the distribution of Neural Grader in North America.
Neural Grader uses specialized industrial cameras and artificial intelligence to identify defects and assign grades automatically to lumber. The product is in late beta stage testing and currently masters red and white oak, as well as ash grading. Other tree species will progressively be added to cover the full range of American hardwood and softwood species.
Neural Grader is designed to be installed in 48 hours on existing production lines. Compared to existing options in the market, this results in much lower installation costs and negligible disruption of production lines.
DMSi is partnering with Fordaq, the same team that developed TallyExpress, the AI-driven end tally system, to bring Neural Grader to the American hardwoods market.
“With TallyExpress, Fordaq achieved 99% accuracy in end tallies with a picture from a phone. They always deliver on what they set out to do with a great combination of vision and technical capability. We look forward to working together to bring the benefits of automated grading technology to the North American lumber industry.” said Henry German, eLIMBS President, a DMSi Subsidiary. “
“Our TallyExpress clients have been asking us to provide them with affordable automated grading technology for a long time. After three years of hard work, we are proud to launch Neural Grader. DMSi benefits from a superb customer reputation, thanks to their professional approach to the market. We look forward to a continued spirit of collaboration,” said Benoit Nieuwenhuys, Fordaq CEO
Fordaq is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium and is the developer of TallyExpress, Neural Grader, and Fordaq.com, the leading global B2B platform for the wood products industry.
Some surprises are nice, like finding $20 in your jacket pocket. But like tax audits and flat tires, other surprises are less pleasant. Surprises about your brand new inventory and accounting software fall into the latter camp. Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do during the software selection process to avoid them. Simple steps like rephrasing questions, meeting support staff, and itemizing implementation costs can reveal a host of overlooked issues. This white paper gives tips for getting a clear vision of your options, so there are fewer surprises once you sign a contract.
Ask five ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software sales reps “does your system have X feature,” and their answers will almost certainly be “yes.” That’s because most ERP platforms handle the same general processes. So, instead of asking “do you have X feature” ask “how do you handle Y process.”
Asking “how” highlights the differences between platforms. For example, there’s a range of ways to handle custom orders, from automated workflows and scheduling to manufacturer interfaces and product configurators. Asking “how” lets you see those differences.
“Show me” is one of the most important phrases when buying software. If there’s a make-or-break process for your business, don’t settle for the sales rep’s description of how the system handles it. Ask to see it in action – a lot. Go through several typical examples and multiple worst-case scenarios. The goal isn’t to stump the vendor. It’s to get an accurate sense of the software’s abilities and limitations.
You may really connect with your sales rep, but once a contract is signed, you won’t see much of them. Instead, you’ll be working with implementation teams, support techs, developers, and consultants. They set up your system, answer your questions, and move your business forward- for the next 10-20 years. So make sure you want to work with them. Signing your contract without meeting customer support is like agreeing to a marriage without meeting your future spouse.
Ask each vendor to calculate the true cost of ownership for their system for the next five years. It clarifies costs, and may highlight some unexpected key differences. Each vendor may have their own method for calculating the true cost of ownership, but here are some of the elements they should address.
User Hardware: Determine if your existing computers and printers can support the new software or if you’ll need to upgrade your equipment. Also consider any specialty hardware you’ll need to purchase such as RF scanners, credit card readers, GPS trackers, or mobile tablets.
Data Storage: Vendors usually charge a monthly fee for hosting customer data. If you plan on using your own server, factor in operational costs such as electricity, anti-virus software, disaster recovery plans, and employee hours. Assume at least one major repair/replacement cost in the next five years.
Data Migration: Your data needs to be formatted for the new system and moved to a new database. (This is true even if using your own server.) In addition to quoting their own fee for this service, have the vendor estimate the amount of time your staff will need to dedicate to the process.
Software Licenses: Enterprise software has two pricing models. A perpetual license means you pay a one-time sum and “own” that version of the software. A subscription license is where you pay a monthly fee to access the most current version of the software. Perpetual licenses usually charge additional fees for customer support and new features. Subscription licenses (called “Software as a Service” or SaaS) usually include support and upgrades with the monthly subscription.
Customizations: If you need a feature, report, or interface that’s not available in the core platform, you may need the vendor or a contractor to develop the enhancement. In addition to development costs, some custom modifications require special maintenance whenever the core platform is updated. Have vendors explain how they handle and bill for customizations to their platform.
Implementation: Core elements of a system implementation include business process reviews, system configuration, setting up vendor integrations, user training, and go-live support. Vendors may offer some, all, or none of these services. Some vendors charge a flat fee for implementation and others bill hourly.
Support: This can be tricky to calculate, as every vendor has their own approach to support. Get documentation about services offered, noting which are free and which are billable. When each vendor estimates your yearly support costs, discuss how they arrived at that number. (For instance, perhaps they forecast you will only place three support calls per quarter. If that’s not a realistic assumption, adjust the estimate.)
User Licenses: Most subscription software is priced in one of two ways: by named users or by concurrent user licenses. Named users mean you pay a fee for every individual user at your company. Concurrent user licenses are like access passes shared by all the users in your system. (If you pay for 20 concurrent user licenses, up to 20 employees can use the system at once.)
Staff Costs: Determine if you’ll need to reallocate or expand staffing to support the new system. For example, if you’ve been relying on your controller to also act as IT administrator, that may no longer be sustainable. You will likely need a dedicated system manager to focus on optimizing your investment. If you intend to do a lot of customizations, you may want to budget for additional staff or regular contractors.
User Training: This includes vendor and contractor fees for the initial implementation training as well as ongoing training costs. If you want your system admin and high-level managers to have in-depth training at workshops and user conferences, include registration and travel expenses.
Lost Productivity: All businesses experience a temporary decline in productivity when they change software. Not only does implementation and training cut into people’s time, every department runs slower as the staff adjusts to the new system. Estimate productivity costs by talking to industry peers about their own implementations. Find out how long it took operations to normalize and what factors helped or impeded progress.
Growth: If you have plans to hire more people, open new locations, or offer new services, factor in costs for additional user licenses, additional hardware, training, and support costs. Additionally, if you plan to make other major technology investments, such as opening an e-commerce platform or installing WMS, incorporate those into your calculation.
Yearly Price Increases: Most vendors can’t guarantee pricing for the next five years, but you can forecast the trend by looking at the past five years. (Note: if a vendor guarantees a set price for five years as part of the contract, you’ll want to investigate their historical price increases. It won’t affect your cost of ownership in the next five years, but you should know what to expect at year six!)
One of the worst ERP surprises is discovering your current system is being phased out by the vendor. Getting a product roadmap can help you gauge the long-term security of a given system.
Ownership structure, leadership tenure, and acquisition history tell you important things about a company’s stability. Frequent changes in senior leadership or ownership can lead to frequent changes in strategy and priorities. If new owners decide to sunset your platform or sell it off to the highest bidder, it can upend your business.
Choosing new lumber yard inventory software is intense. It’s easy to develop tunnel vision around a handful of features and functions. Remember the big picture. Researching company histories and calculating total cost of ownership may not change your decision, but they will help set realistic expectations, increase your odds of success, and reduce your risk of unpleasant surprises.
Some surprises are nice, like finding $20 in your jacket pocket. But like tax audits and flat tires, other surprises are less pleasant. Surprises about your brand new inventory and accounting software fall into the latter camp. Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do during the software selection process to avoid them. Simple steps like rephrasing questions, meeting support staff, and itemizing implementation costs can reveal a host of overlooked issues. This white paper gives tips for getting a clear vision of your options, so there are fewer surprises once you sign a contract.
Ask five ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) software sales reps “does your system have X feature,” and their answers will almost certainly be “yes.” That’s because most ERP platforms handle the same general processes. So, instead of asking “do you have X feature” ask “how do you handle Y process.”
Asking “how” highlights the differences between platforms. For example, there’s a range of ways to handle custom orders, from automated workflows and scheduling to manufacturer interfaces and product configurators. Asking “how” lets you see those differences.
“Show me” is one of the most important phrases when buying software. If there’s a make-or-break process for your business, don’t settle for the sales rep’s description of how the system handles it. Ask to see it in action – a lot. Go through several typical examples and multiple worst- case scenarios. The goal isn’t to stump the vendor. It’s to get an accurate sense of the software’s abilities and limitations.
You may really connect with your sales rep, but once a contract is signed, you won’t see much of them. Instead, you’ll be working with implementation teams, support techs, developers, and consultants. They set up your system, answer your questions, and move your business forward- for the next 10-20 years. So make sure you want to work with them. Signing your contract without meeting customer support is like agreeing to a marriage without meeting your future spouse.
Ask each vendor to calculate the true cost of ownership for their system for the next five years. It clarifies costs, and may highlight some unexpected key differences. Each vendor may have their own method for calculating the true cost of ownership, but here are some of the elements they should address.
User Hardware: Determine if your existing computers and printers can support the new software or if you’ll need to upgrade your equipment. Also consider any specialty hardware you’ll need to purchase such as RF scanners, credit card readers, GPS trackers, or mobile tablets.
Data Storage: Vendors usually charge a monthly fee for hosting customer data. If you plan on using your own server, factor in operational costs such as electricity, anti-virus software, disaster recovery plans, and employee hours. Assume at least one major repair/replacement cost in the next five years.
Data Migration: Your data needs to be formatted for the new system and moved to a new database. (This is true even if using your own server.) In addition to quoting their own fee for this service, have the vendor estimate the amount of time your staff will need to dedicate to the process.
Software Licenses: Enterprise software has two pricing models. A perpetual license means you pay a one-time sum and “own” that version of the software. A subscription license is where you pay a monthly fee to access the most current version of the software. Perpetual licenses usually charge additional fees for customer support and new features. Subscription licenses (called “Software as a Service” or SaaS) usually include support and upgrades with the monthly subscription.
Customizations: If you need a feature, report, or interface that’s not available in the core platform, you may need the vendor or a contractor to develop the enhancement. In addition to development costs, some custom modifications require special maintenance whenever the core platform is updated. Have vendors explain how they handle and bill for customizations to their platform.
Implementation: Core elements of a system implementation include business process reviews, system configuration, setting up vendor integrations, user training, and go-live support. Vendors may offer some, all, or none of these services. Some vendors charge a flat fee for implementation and others bill hourly.
Support: This can be tricky to calculate, as every vendor has their own approach to support. Get documentation about services offered, noting which are free and which are billable. When each vendor estimates your yearly support costs, discuss how they arrived at that number. (For instance, perhaps they forecast you will only place three support calls per quarter. If that’s not a realistic assumption, adjust the estimate.)
User Licenses: Most subscription software is priced in one of two ways: by named users or by concurrent user licenses. Named users mean you pay a fee for every individual user at your company. Concurrent user licenses are like access passes shared by all the users in your system. (If you pay for 20 concurrent user licenses, up to 20 employees can use the system at once.)
Staff Costs: Determine if you’ll need to reallocate or expand staffing to support the new system. For example, if you’ve been relying on your controller to also act as IT administrator, that may no longer be sustainable. You will likely need a dedicated system manager to focus on optimizing your investment. If you intend to do a lot of customizations, you may want to budget for additional staff or regular contractors.
User Training: This includes vendor and contractor fees for the initial implementation training as well as ongoing training costs. If you want your system admin and high-level managers to have in-depth training at workshops and user conferences, include registration and travel expenses.
Lost Productivity: All businesses experience a temporary decline in productivity when they change software. Not only does implementation and training cut into people’s time, every department runs slower as the staff adjusts to the new system. Estimate productivity costs by talking to industry peers about their own implementations. Find out how long it took operations to normalize and what factors helped or impeded progress.
Growth: If you have plans to hire more people, open new locations, or offer new services, factor in costs for additional user licenses, additional hardware, training, and support costs. Additionally, if you plan to make other major technology investments, such as opening an e-commerce platform or installing WMS, incorporate those into your calculation.
Yearly Price Increases: Most vendors can’t guarantee pricing for the next five years, but you can forecast the trend by looking at the past five years. (Note: if a vendor guarantees a set price for five years as part of the contract, you’ll want to investigate their historical price increases. It won’t affect your cost of ownership in the next five years, but you should know what to expect at year six!)
One of the worst ERP surprises is discovering your current system is being phased out by the vendor. Getting a product roadmap can help you gauge the long-term security of a given system.
Ownership structure, leadership tenure, and acquisition history tell you important things about a company’s stability. Frequent changes in senior leadership or ownership can lead to frequent changes in strategy and priorities. If new owners decide to sunset your platform or sell it off to the highest bidder, it can upend your business.
Choosing new lumber yard inventory software is intense. It’s easy to develop tunnel vision around a handful of features and functions. Remember the big picture. Researching company histories and calculating total cost of ownership may not change your decision, but they will help set realistic expectations, increase your odds of success, and reduce your risk of unpleasant surprises.
OMAHA, NE – September 19, 2022 – DMSi Software announced today that it has acquired Simply Computing International, Inc. (SCi), a leading provider of handheld inventory software for the hardwood and softwood industries.
Based in Brewer, Maine, SCi has offered unique business management software for over 30 years. Barry Hodgkin, Founder, will join DMSi to ensure a smooth customer transition and to guide the software’s future direction.
“We are excited to bring SCi into the DMSi family as we expand our solutions for the hardwood industry,” said Henry German, President of eLIMBS, LLC, a DMSi company. “They have a proven track record of successfully serving hardwood and softwood businesses and will help us deliver the best software experience available to this market for years.”
“We are happy to join forces with DMSi,” said Hodgkin. “After building trusted relationships with our customers, I chose a company that was committed to serving our industry who can provide ongoing support and technology advancement for our customers.”
Both companies will attend the NHLA Annual Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, in September. Further details will also be communicated to customers and partners when the transaction is finalized in September.
This October, Northwest Hardwoods flipped the odometer on a major milestone: scanning its one millionth bundle with TallyExpress.
TallyExpress, the app that captures hardwood end tallies in seconds by taking pictures with an Android smartphone, uses computer vision technology to measure each board in a bundle.
The one million milestone is a particularly meaningful moment for Northwest Hardwoods and DMSi because of how closely the two companies worked together to develop it.
“We really worked together to advance it.”
“It was a bit risky because when we reached out to Northwest Hardwoods to pitch them TallyExpress, the app was still in its adolescent phase. We really worked together to advance it,” said Henry German, Product Manager of TallyExpress at DMSi. “They bought into the vision we had for it and went out of their way to help develop it. They. have brought it the credibility of volume it needed to roll out to the industry at large.”
“We pride ourselves on world-class quality and accurate grading. TallyExpress has allowed us to maintain high standards for tally accuracy while also significantly improving our efficiency,” said Wesley Bourland, Vice President of Manufacturing of Northwest Hardwoods. “It’s now an essential part of our workflow.”
While a small handful of single-location companies were already using the app, Northwest Hardwoods needed to be able to scale TallyExpress into at least 12 separate facilities.
“They’re a sophisticated operation and they pay attention to efficiencies,” said German. “There were things like width range parameters that needed to be flagged. We knew the technology had to do this but the folks at Northwest Hardwoods pushed us to develop it faster.”
To demonstrate proof of concept, Northwest Hardwoods first tested around 100 bundles and compared TallyExpress with other machine tally methods. They followed up this initial test with a three-month pilot, tallying over 5,000 bundles and performing weekly spot checks. The app was 99.5% accurate to a tape measure on the spot checks, with some sites seeing 99.9% accuracy. At that point, the lumber company was confident the app would work.
Developed by Fordaq, a technology company providing solutions to the global forestry and wood products industry, TallyExpress is now used in over 100 locations across the United States and Canada. It is available as both a standalone product and as an integrated component of Agility and eLIMBS, DMSi’s business software offerings from timber to consumer in the hardwood lumber market.
About Northwest Hardwoods
Northwest Hardwoods is the largest manufacturer of hardwood lumber in the US, manufacturing 14 domestic species of the highest quality hardwood lumber. The company also supplies over 20 species of quality imported exotic hardwood lumber and both structural and appearance plywood.
