SOFA Project
Sitting comfortably with the help of R3-Online
The SOFA Project is a valued client of R3-Online and a great example of how technology can be used to the benefit of furniture reuse and recycling organisations.
The R3-Online team first met with the SOFA Project in 2008 and again several times thereafter to discuss requirements before proceeding with the system implementation. “Our original need was to have greater visibility of where the items we trade in were in the process, to enable us to plan our delivery schedules and other related activities more economically” notes Julian Williams, CEO of the SOFA Project.
The database which the SOFA Project had in place before switching to R3-Online wasn't as flexible, “We can get better reports out of it, searching for customers is a lot easier than it was before. We also won't have to handwrite receipts anymore” said Paul Townsend, Operations Director. This is helpful from both an operational and a compliance perspective “the environment agency want to know how much waste has come into my site, how much we have reused, split it down by manufacturer and much more.”
The system went live after some further development on early 2010 – Jon Ellard, Managing Director of R3-Online was very happy with how intuitive people across the SOFA Project were finding the software “It was great for us to go back 3 months after implementation and not only see the senior managers using the system but also the van drivers, those that work in the ARC – getting their hands on the barcode readers, the R3-Online software and making them work for the project”. History tells many tales that gaining organisation wide acceptance of any new technology can be one of the hardest tasks in such a project – so this is a very positive result for R3-Online.
After implementation, the benefits that the SOFA Project are receiving from R3-Online are much as they had expected:
- Efficient production of daily schedules for the drivers, so they can plan their routes
- People in the ARC are able to work in a consistent, processed manner with work traceable back to teams and individuals, for quality assurance purposes
- Time saving and accuracy around reporting at the end of each quarter and on an ad-hoc management information basis was the key benefit for senior management
- Gift Aid collected is up 25% since using R3-Online
- Team members are able to concentrate on managing the operation rather than managing the data
Fergus, Director at R3-Online captures essence of these benefits succinctly “in the current economic climate, a system like R3-Online actually helps our clients operate more efficiently and therefore they can actually deliver more benefits to the community.”
But the key question is, are the SOFA project happy with their investment in R3-Online?
“It is a vast improvement on what we had before” says Julian Williams from the SOFA Project. He went on to say “the R3-Online team have been very successful at expanding the system to include new requirements, which we have written into the specification, resulting in a system that I would think would certainly benefit furniture reuse organisations all over the country – I've been happy to introduce the R3-Online team to other opportunities”.
But the R3-Online team are not satisfied with this result, they’re going on to further enhance the system for the benefit of the SOFA Project and the other clients. New functionality includes enhancements to the barcode scanner AIMS technology for the sales floor and developing a calculator functionality to help organisations judge whether the cost of repairing an item is economically worthwhile, or if an item should instead be used as spare parts.
Jon Ellard from R3-Online summarises the proactive approach of R3-Online “I think the way that the SOFA Project are viewing R3-Online is that with rapidly changing legislation in this area, they require a solution that is flexible, so that it’s not just answering today’s problems but it will be keeping ahead of future problems.”