Red Shelves in TradeTech
Andrew Kemp - Supply Chain Project Manager and Robert Thompson - Technical Support Manager at the Warehouse Ltd work with TradeTech to develop a new distribution system for The Warehouse spare parts.
The Warehouse Ltd (TWL) provides a technical support and parts service for the electronic and electrical equipment sold in its stores. When TWL decided they wanted to concentrate solely on providing technical support to the service technicians around New Zealand they sought to establish a relationship with a logistics company to provide an efficient and accurate system for distributing their parts nationwide.
During the tendering process TWL Technical Support was impressed with TradeTech’s systems, especially the ordering and reporting functions, and the established relationships with electronic repair technicians throughout the country.
TradeTech was supplying most service and repair companies in New Zealand with parts and was ideally suited to supply TWL spare parts to nominated repair agencies and the Big Red Stores.
TradeTech’s experience as a third-party logistics operator made them a natural choice and the two companies are delighted with the outcomes. TWL can now focus on supporting the service industry with technical knowledge while TradeTech goes about the business of delivering “the right part to the right place at the right time”
TradeTech’s excellent systems means they can confidently guarantee they will:
· Maintain parts order fulfilment ratios
· Meet order processing and parts distribution timeframes
· Meet picking and despatching accuracy expectations
· Provide accurate inventory control, analysis and reporting systems
The shift has given TWL the opportunity to rationalise the number of parts they were carrying and create efficiencies in their operation. Now all their parts are neatly stacked on red shelves in the TradeTech warehouse on William Pickering Drive.
Another important feature of the relationship is the coordination role between the technical support personnel at TWL and TradeTech. This enables an efficient flow of information between the two companies – TWL is able to interpret what the customer wants, identify the fault and supply information on the correct parts to supply. This information is stored in a database and makes subsequent diagnosis of faults and remedies easy to retrieve.
TradeTech is also able to supply some items from their own stock of 17,000 generic parts when TWL parts are unavailable.
Robert Thompson has this to say, “ The partnership with TradeTech is working very well. Now that we don’t get involved with the parts side of the service we have more time to diagnose problems and give support to the hundreds of technicians working throughout New Zealand. Our workshop is just up the road from TradeTech and I visit each day to make sure that between us we are providing a coordinated and efficient service to technicians. TradeTech’s excellent systems have enabled us to capture information for future use. We no longer have to rely solely on what is stored in our heads! Our two teams work well together and we certainly appreciate the professional and friendly staff at 17A William Pickering”.
A Day in the Life of a Service Repair Technician
A glimpse of how TradeTech and TWL have developed a highly efficient service for repair technicians.
It’s Tuesday at Tisco Christchurch Limited and Bryan Edwards has a busy morning with The Warehouse Ltd (TWL) warranty work - he has three televisions, an LCD TV and a microwave to repair on behalf of TWL. With his team of experienced service tech’s, they have no problem diagnosing the faults on the televisions, and the microwave and they believe that the LCD has a fault on the signal board.
Bryan’s admin team opens the TradeTech website, enters the TV and microwave model numbers, searches the descriptions, and identifies the correct part numbers. They click on these part numbers and add the items to the electronic shopping basket. Checking through their other work, the team finds some general repairs which also need parts and adds these to the order. They email the order to TradeTech and receive an immediate automatic acknowledgement.
Bryan’s team continue their work, and 45 minutes later, an email arrives with an electronic invoice and a courier trace number attached - showing that the parts have been picked and packed in Auckland and are on the way to Christchurch. Bryan’s team knows that the parts will arrive first thing in the morning. They also know from experience that TradeTech’s excellent back order system will take care of any part that is not in stock and he will be notified as soon as it is available.
Repair of the LCD TV is a bit more complicated and Bryan’s technician needs help from the TWL Technical Support Team. Robert Thompson and the team at TWL have helped him with the more tricky solutions in the past. Bryan calls Robert at his workshop, just up the road from TradeTech on Auckland’s North Shore, to discuss the problem. Robert promises to come back to Bryan by the end of the day with a solution.
For the repair of the LCD TV the TWL Technical Support Team has to work through the problem. They search the TradeTech inventory system, by model number and find there are only limited parts in stock for this item and not a signal board. Robert sees on the inventory list that there is a sample LCD panel with signal board of the same model. He asks the storeman to retrieve the LCD panel from the TradeTech warehouse and send it to Bryan who in turn sends the damaged board back to the Technical Support workshop. The team analyses the faulty board, and creates a technical bulletin, which is posted on the TradeTech website, making analysis and correction of the fault a standard procedure for all repair technicians in the future.
During the day, the TradeTech Customer Services Team responds to a further 35 requests for TWL parts. Orders are taken by telephone, by fax or through the website. Most orders come from technicians who know the part number or have obtained it from TWL technical support staff.
BayCity Technologies
Graham Henshaw, Operations Manager at BayCity Technologies in Christchurch, has been dealing with TradeTech for many years. Here’s what he has to say about the service he receives from the OEM Team.
“BayCity Technologies Ltd are an OEM customer for TradeTech and have been since our company started.
We are involved in collecting data from the farming community.
Our first large contract required that we source power supplies from a volume manufacturer, we had been handed a contact in China that could supply the necessary power supplies.
On further investigation we found that the Chinese supplier had a great relationship with a New Zealand distributor, TradeTech.
When we approached Trade Tech about being the import agent for our custom built power supplies they readily agreed, then went the extra mile and helped BayCity Technologies get the necessary regulatory approvals. They then proceeded to smooth the way by shipping direct to our customer.
As we are a small team this is all of great benefit to our business. It really took some pressure off us and we really appreciated the effort from Mike and his team.
We then had an issue with the supplier of Antenna’s, I gave our mates at Trade Tech a call and explained the requirement. After some too’ing and fro’ing we got a product that not only met the spec but exceeded our customer’s requirements due to the ease of installation. A change that was initiated by TradeTech as an option.
Since then we have built a solid relationship by buying our hand tools / anti static equipment and sundry items for our development workshop.
They are always a pleasure to deal with and are very helpful. We just have to ask and they’re always willing to help or come up with a solution, communication is the key”.
