Whether you’ve moved into a brand-new house and revelled at the pristine walls; had the pleasure of hanging a curtain rail or needed to deal with the repairs after a shelving unit has pulled a hole in the wall, you will no doubt appreciate the skill and effort that goes into giving us all the internal perfection that is dry walling.

Much like any of the activities involved in house building, it’s a profession and trade which relies not only on the skill of the tradesperson, but also on careful orchestration of the installation and materials.

Whilst the types of different materials and equipment needed to install the dry-wall is not exhaustive, the volume and bulk can be considerable, and perishable in some circumstances, so coordination within a build schedule is key.

As one of our longest standing customers, Red Rose are the UK's largest suppliers of dry lining to all of the recognised house builders as well as across government and commercial property.

They not only buy (and onward supply) the materials in bulk to site, but they act as the prime contractor to the house builders providing a one-stop-shop for the house builders and indeed anyone looking for dry lining at scale.

This means managing not only a full list of contractors, but also pricing, allocation of time, detailed sub-contracts, materials, time-bookings and handling the processing of all the financial transactions that come with this complex web of commitments, companies and monies.

In their role as prime, they also have to deal with disputes, clarifications, repairs, quality and all the trappings that come with this obligation and position as the main focal point for their services across the UK.

There are a lot of moving parts in this organisation, and when you throw Just-In-Time material delivery into the mix, it is a difficult challenge to keep running.

When the company started 25+ years ago, the concept of automated systems didn't really exist. Everything was done on paper and then Excel. It was all disconnected, with a large amount of manual repetition (recognise the problem?)

Our solution was not to replace all their existing systems, but to approach the problem with a combination of keeping what works, replacing the failing, or older components with new or modern services and providing the glue in between with a single management platform, so there is one place to go for the 'truth'.

Customers and contractors can access the information that's relevant to them, and this was all wrapped up with a process review to make sure they were evolving their business approach and not missing out on the opportunity to pick up the efficiency gains available not just through digitisation, but through optimising what they do today.

5 years on, our desktop, cloud and tablet based apps, now help Red Rose run in excess of 90% of their operations from contracts, materials, timesheets, cost control, customer care, payroll, compliance and much more, with automation allowing them to double their business revenues with only a 25% increase in staff.

We continue to work with Red Rose, improving their operational management systems as they diversify into new business areas, partly enabled through the efficiency gains achieved through their adoption of digital automation.

.. and for those of you who like KPI's... the business has >160 major customers, more than 1,000 sub contractors, 2,000 sites managed with in excess of 32,000 homes; approaching 2,000,000 timesheet entries and more than 6,000,000 items processes (materials)...

.. but more importantly... digitalisation has removed >1,000 man hours per year, saving an initial £1m alone from a 5% reduction in timesheet errors, and a further >£3.5m saved through reduction in order errors.

So, get in touch and see how you could achieve the same for your business.