Customer Case Studies
Todays business delivers 40,000 bulk seed bags, 50,000 50Kg seed bags, 15,000 bags of rapeseed and 1 million bulk bags of fertiliser and is a major UK agribusiness. Cal Software has been selected to provide a complete solution, comprising Compac Gold, Generation and Open Accounts. The new F4F compliant solution is being deployed to over 150 people in BCA's Straights Feeds, Crop Protection, Fertiliser, Seed, Grain and Retail businesses and enables integration to the F4F on line marketplace in which BCA is a founding equity partner.
ABNA.Cal Software has been selected to deliver its new messaging technology Agrenet. The solution increases administrative efficiency by saving on the duplication of data entry and automatically sends information where it is needed. The software enables a secure and reliable exchange of documents, such as purchaces orders and invoices between trading partners and ensures their distribution to the correct destination. This technology will initially be used to integrate ABNA businesses including Trident Feeds, The Allied Grain Group and JK King.
First 4 Farming. Agriculture's consortium marketplace formed by prominent agricultural businesses, which include Banks Cargill Agriculture, Terra, Kemira, Dupont, BOCM Pauls, Syngenta, Hydro, Merial, Dalgety and Bank Of Scotland. This community currently has over 50% of the UK's grain, seed & feed producers, fertiliser manufacturers and distributors as well as agrochemical manufacturers providing an industry wide solution, which will enable companies of all types to trade electronically through an industry exchange. Progress Software, together with Cal Software was awarded the contract as part of a technology consortium following a stringent selection process managed by KPMG, which analysed companies from niche agri solution providers through to international software companies.
The Inencogroup (Inenco). The company is based in Lytham St Annes is the largest energy and utility consultancy company in the UK and now part of Mid Kent Water. They analyse the consumption of Electricity, Gas, Oil, Water, Telecoms and other utilities by a wide range of enterprises and advise them on how to save money by optimising their choice of supplier and tariff.
Having developed its internal systems during the era of nationalised monopoly suppliers with relatively straightforward tariff's, Inenco required a much more flexible solution for the 90's and beyond.
Cal Software, designed and delivered a new system using Progress, a world leading 4th Generation Language (4GL). The purpose was to meet two central business objectives.
Firstly, a contact management and workflow system, designed to be used by the sales force and consultants; Secondly, a large flexible tariff modelling system to enable consultants to test the economic consequences of a number of alternative buying strategies on behalf of their customers.
The system is now in use at Inenco, operating in a client service environment and supporting over 100 concurrent users.
Norwich Union. Cal Software has been working with Norwich Union, for several years. The latest version of the software called "Preview" utilises Digital Camera technology and Progress Software, one of the latest windows based Fourth Generation Programming Languages (4GL's) relational data base facilities.
Preview stores buyer's requirements and matches them against previously entered property details. As well as details like room dimensions, the system stores photographs of a property to enable the prospective buyer to view the property without leaving the office, (hence the name!). Preview however is more than a matching system, it is fully integrated with the administration tools a major company like Norwich Union requires. The other unique feature of Preview is that information from one branch can be seen at another e.g. Properties in Perth can be viewed in York. Preview has been installed in over 300 offices in the UK.
Grainfarmers. They are now one of the largest grain businesses in the country. Headquartered in Southampton their business is focused on Southern and Central England and they market approximately 2 million tonnes of grain annually. They have invested in Compac Gold following a comprehensive systems evaluation of trading software products and have now deployed it across 3 sites embracing over 75 users, utilising an NT environment and terminal server. In addition to grain trading they also operate groups and pools through the package and have installed Summit Accounts to handle the financials.
Trident Feeds. This business is part of the ABNA group of companies and is the prime supplier of sugar beet pulp to the majority of UK Agriculture. They also market distillery by-products from distillers in Scotland both at home and abroad. Cal Software has implemented Compac Gold in an NT environment with a Corvu Management Reporting suite across the business at Peterborough, with integration to over 30 sites including weighbridges nationwide via a thin client deployment. This implementation has also seen the development of a haulage matrix system, which has been integrated into the core package. Such is the success of this implementation that Trident Feeds has now installed Inteletrade UK Agriculture's first Web based Business to Business (B2B) solution to over 100 merchants.
Sun Valley Foods. A major poultry producer owned by Cargill that operates a large integrated production facility near Hereford. Following an extensive search for a state of the art and proven Agricultural Business Solution, they have implemented a fully integrated software solution from Cal Software. There are integrations between Compac Gold, the DSL Mill Process Controler, Precia Molen weighbridge software, Truckstops transport scheduler, JDE financials and Format formulation application.
The Feedmill supplies feed to private and company poultry growers, the birds from these farms are processed in Sun Valley's processing plants and sold on to retail and food service customers.
This is a round the clock operation with a resilient systems infrastructure comprising a Windows 2000 server and an NT server running Citrix Winframe and both local and remote user access.
Provimi Ltd. Based in Lichfield they are a manufacturer of Animal Feed Supplements and Animal Health products. Through a process of going out to tender for a new system they short listed 3 major UK Agri System suppliers, whom they put head to head to see who could demonstrate the best fit for their business with an emphasis on traceability and production control. Cal Software's bid was successful and a fully integrated solution comprising Compac Gold, the DB Brooks Process Control Software and Open Accounts was deployed across a medium sized NT network with internal and external email facilities.
Dodson & Horrell Limited (D&H). Headquartered in Ringstead, DHL is a long stablished manufacturer of specialist horse feed and pet food, which is bag rather than bulk orientated. The business comprises 3 sites, two of which are manufacturing and all of which are now using Compac Gold and Summit Accounts. They use Compac Gold intensively for Sales Order Processing, Cash Sales, Purchase Contracts from both a self bill and non self bill perspective and they sell to Japan, France, Belgium, Falklands and Saudi Arabia making full use of the multi currency facilities inherent in the software. Both packages are part of an overall integration, which includes transport-scheduling software and operates on a medium sized NT network using Terminal Server for remote connections.
When D&H started researching the marketplace for suppliers of agricultural software packages they were already well versed in the advantages and considerations of technology. This was established through an independent Consultancy, which had been the incumbent supplier and had a good relationship for many years with D&H through the supply of a bespoke system, which met their business needs. The package evaluations were very thorough indeed, lasting over a year before Cal Software was awarded the contract.
North Eastern Farmers Limited (NEF). They are a well known co-operative covering the whole of Northern Scotland and serving members and customers with a complete range of co-operative services. They have made a series of phased decisions starting with the Grain implementation of Compac Gold in the grain trading operation and extending through to feed manufacture and other trading activities. Integration to Summit Accounts completes the overall system deployment. One key factor in selecting Compac Gold over other potential system suppliers was the fact that its wide ranging functionality fitted in well with the traditional broad spread of services supplied by NEF. To illustrate the flexibility required the Cal Software package had to accommodate Groups and Pools, which NEF operates on behalf of their members and they handle the intricacies of Forward Book from a fiscal and physical perspective. The system itself runs over a medium size NT network with Terminal Server remote connections to an outside store. They have been active members of The User Group and have used their expertise to drive the functionality forward, making it the system of choice for Feed, their next deployment.
DLF-Perryfields (PHL). Based in Inkberrow, PHL is the largest and fastest growing grass and wildflower seed specialists in the UK. It is also a market leading producer and supplier of game cover crops to the retail trade. PHL as part of the evolution of their business systems committed resource along with other Seed Industry companies via a unique Seeds Club to assist us in the development of Generation, the only UK Windows Seeds Package designed for the industry by the industry. One of PHL's parent companies is DSV in Germany, the others are SCATS Agriproducts, Countrywide and NEF.
An acquisitive strategy has seen them buy Johnsons Seeds where they add, "box lawn seed" to their wide ranging product set and gain B&Q and Sainsbury Homebase as new customers. Generation is running in an NT environment over Terminal Server, with remote access out over a WAN to Perth. PHL believe that systems are integral to their business and to reducing administration and inefficiency, so are also supporting Seedwise, our sister product to enable the industry to have secure access over the Internet.
Germinal Holdings. From their Head Office in Northern Ireland the group is made up of British Seed Houses, David Bell Ltd, Samual McCauslands, Joseph Mortons, Coburns and Germinal Ireland. Each of the companies within the group contracts, processes and markets cereal, oilseed, pulses and grass seed varieties. Furthermore they produce grass mixtures to customer requirements and own brand mixtures. IT, is integral to their business and they have been instrumental in the development and support of Generation and its Internet sister product Seedwise. Generation is running in an NT environment for intended group-wide rollout.
Barenbrug. The UK operation is part of a world wide Dutch based company. They specialise in the breeding and production of grass seed and are one of the biggest grass seed producers in the world. The UK operation mainly markets Barenbrug varieties and mixtures in the UK with the processing and testing aspects of their business sub-contracted. They are a founding member of The Seeds Club and have been instrumental in Generation's design, which we then deployed across their business on an NT LAN. As with other member of The Seeds Club they are also backing Seedwise which is Generation's Internet sister product.
Countrywide Farmers. Formed as a result of the merger of WMF and MSF. The new business has been part of the Seed Club and development of Generation, which is now deployed across the business, residing on a Local Area Network at Melksham with remote links via Terminal Server to Defford.
