How Data Integration Enabled Woodtone to Turn Information to Impact

Get the story behind our work with one of British Columbia's top forestry products companies.

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A Fragmented Data Strategy

At Fastloop, we love working with companies that are passionate about innovation and driving positive change in their industries. Woodtone, a British Columbia-based producer of pre-finished building products for commercial and custom home projects acrossNorth America, is one such company. Woodtone has been a trusted partner to builders and distributors for over four decades, as with any business, their growth over the years has created complexity. To keep up with rising demand, Woodtone’s IT investments resulted in disparate technical infrastructure, fragmented information and complex workflows. This made it challenging to adapt to sudden changes, such as price volatility of raw materials.

In today's complex business environment, organizations need to manage an enormous amount of data to make better decisions and remain competitive. Data integration, which is the process of extracting and combining data from various sources to create a single, unified view, is becoming increasingly important. This is because disparate technical makes it difficult to adapt to sudden changes in the markets. Fastloop, as a data integrator, helps organizations streamline their operations through a comprehensive data and analytics strategy. Here we highlight how data integration can help organizations like Woodtone unlock the power of their information, make better decisions, and improve the operations of their business.

Implementing a Data Integration Strategy

As a data integrator, Fastloop saw an opportunity to help Woodtone overcome these challenges and streamline their operations. Out team worked with Woodtone to create a comprehensive data and analytics strategy aimed at reducing complexity in their operating systems and democratizing information across the entire business.

Our first step was to extract data from Woodtone's many operating systems, including its enterprise resource planning system (ERP),inventory management application, accounting systems, and people management software. This data was then integrated into one streamlined, cloud-based data platform.

By extracting the data out of the back-end databases, we were able to access the most granular information from Woodtone and turn it into non-technical information that executives and operators could use to get a clear picture of how their daily decisions affect the business. This allowed Woodtone to make better decisions, enhance productivity, optimize operations ,and ease supply chain risk.

Improved Business Operations for Woodtone 

The results of this data integration work were significant for Woodtone, resulting in improved business operations in four key areas:

Management & Reporting: Fastloop delivered key business metrics that employees can see in real-time and gain deeper operating insights from. Across procurement, sales, operations, and finance, all of Woodtone's teams can now recognize the true operational levers of their departments and understand how their decisions contribute to the larger organization.

Inventory Optimization: By using integrated information across the business, Woodtone can pinpoint how much effort and material go into each sales order across its supply chain. Real-time visibility into available inventory, movement of goods, input materials, additive costs, and customer orders gives Woodtone insights they can use to lower their inventory levels, improve throughput, and better manage the balance sheet, which ultimately leads to delivering more value to customers.

Commodity Price Management: Due to the lumber industry's volatile price swings, Woodtone previously had to aggressively manage daily lumber purchases. With the integration of Woodtone's available inventory with real-time commodity pricing through RandomLengths, Woodtone now receives proactive alerts and notifications so it can purchase more efficiently and lower spend on raw materials.

Pricing Improvements: With deep inventory and operating insights enabled, Woodtone's sales team can now be more effective in offering up product availability and precise with their finished-goods pricing, enabling the right product and the right price to customers.

Leverage Data Integration for Your Organization

At Fastloop, we know that data integration is the key to unlocking the power of your information. It provides stakeholders meaningful access to the information they need to make better decisions and improve the operations of their business with speed, confidence, and precision. If your organization could use some support when it comes to better leveraging data, analytics or AI for business impact, get in touch with our team of data integration experts today!

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