Paper burden leads Cloete Sand and Stone into digital era

Building supplier, Cloete Sand and Stone, has used a paper-based administration system for over 34 years. It recently opted to digitise its system and has appointed Strato IT Group, which will implement StratoPOD, a mobile business application that offers customised, digital proof of delivery. The full fleet is expected to go live in September.

Cassie Lessing, CEO, Strato IT Group says that the company is excited about the implementation at Cloete Sand and Stone: “This a great opportunity to showcase what StratoPOD can offer within the building industry. These companies face tremendous administration challenges and by digitising their process, they will benefit on many levels.”

He says that StratoPOD had to address several operational challenges within Cloete Sand and Stone: “There are large volumes of administrative tasks such as data capturing, document scanning, creation of delivery packs which include PODs, loading slips and daily schedules which are all paper-based. These needed to be digitised with the aim to reduce the administration burden.”

Wesley Cloete, managing director of Cloete Sand and Stone says the paper-based system was making accurate management difficult: “We needed an improved system that provided us with real-time reports, easy access to historic information; improved delivery processes, including live reporting from our drivers when delivering and also when loading at the quarry.”

He says that StratoPOD provides Cloete’s Sand and Stone with a single, connected system that will significantly reduce their administrative burden and digitise the current environment. “We will be able to dynamically reschedule and re-allocate goods in transit with the correct documentation, which was not possible with the paper-based system.”

Using StratoPOD, there will be overall improvement of all operational efficiencies based on the fact that the data will be captured at the source. There is also no need for delivery packs to be created and no documents will need to be scanned into the back-office system.

Strato IT Group’s Lessing says that Cloete Sand and Stone will benefit immensely from the StratoPOD application: “There will be dramatically improved visibility of delivery operations as these are automatically tracked and the vehicle’s status is updated; a more efficient vehicle dispatching process will also be implemented and they will have access to real time reports and improved access to historic data and drivers.”

A major advantage will be an improved process for drivers. Lessing says that each driver will have to complete one step before moving to the next, so anyone at any time can track the progress of a delivery: “A major feature within StratoPOD is the ability to dynamically reschedule and re-allocate goods in transit with the correct documentation. This means there will be no need for delivery vehicles to return to base if there are unplanned cancellations of collections or deliveries. Transport activities are dynamically re-directed to alternative suppliers or customers.