FIXFAST LTD

TOC experiences
 Leading UK manufacturer of
specialist construction products

Head office in Kent

Branch in Northern Ireland
Sister company in USA
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 Complete Specialist Product Range for
The Building Envelope

Fasteners Adhesive Roof Drainage Rooftop

Safe Access Sealants Weatherproofing Tools

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 What we do offer
Technical Advice & Performance Data

Prescriptive or Descriptive NBS Specifications

Fastener calculations for flat roofs and rainscreen

On-site testing and support

Industry Leading Customer Service

Next day delivery by Noon as standard

Availability - our main competitive advantage

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 Supply Chain Challenges

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 Our situation & problems
● Stock Issues
● 6700 SKUs
● Moved away from forecasting to replenishing what we used (PTA)

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 Additional challenges
● Large reduction of stock-outs due to new methods
● Some key products still caused problems
● Long lead times (9 months), large manufacturing batches and only ordered every 6 months.
● Sub contractors located in Taiwan – English not their first language

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 Direction
● Reduce lead time from 9 months to 8 weeks
● 8 weeks aligned to standard shipping time
● Sub contractor needed to hold good stock – never had done this before

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 What happened
● We weren’t aware of the intricacies of their supply chain – we didn’t know where stock should be held in
the chain, or what quantities would be needed as WIP.
● What we did know was that we needed them to hold and maintain a buffer of finished goods.
● Stockouts = missed sales. We didn’t know how much we were missing.
● The sub contractors had never placed order for raw material until we placed an order with them.
● We needed to ensure we understood principles enough to convince across cultural and language barriers.

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 What happened
● 3 day visit with our Supply Chain Manager to 2 sub contractors in Taiwan in September 2017
● 1 sub contractor grasped the concept straight away
● 2nd sub contractor took more effort – they thought that a fixed quantity on their shelf was all we required,
and they struggled to see how they could finance it.

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Maximum reliability. Minimum fuss
 What happened
● Our Supply Chain Manager had several video calls to confirm the details
● Both sub contractors ultimately realised the new method would bring them larger sales and a signed
secure agreement with us.
● Agreement signed at sub contractor 1, and stock ready from 1st April
● Agreement at sub contractor 2 will be signed in the next few days, with stock in place in December

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 Conclusions
● Not a quick process – still work to do on sub contractor 2
● Only got agreement in place for top 13 products – many more to follow
● Temporary Overstocks
● Win-Win!

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 Any questions so far?

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 Plans for Sales Growth

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Maximum reliability. Minimum fuss
 Our situation & problems
● Blacks down to a manageable level – at least the noise disappeared!
● We have a growth strategy so our attention switched to our sales efforts
● Regional Sales teams were responsible for customers in their area
● Marketing
● Quoting
● Selling
● A lot of the customer service support
● Regional Sales teams focused on keeping the BDM visiting as many customers as possible

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 Direction
● When my sales team are not actively selling they aren’t actively growing the business!
● Focused on specialisation and standardisation to achieve an increase of MSIs

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 What happened
● Order processing removed from sales
● MSIs measured
● We focused on inside sales not field sales visits
● Set up protected calling times to maximise quantities of MSIs
● Stopped the sales team doing a lot of non-sales activity they had been doing, specifically chasing repeat
business from existing customers

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£-
£10 000 000,00
£12 000 000,00
£14 000 000,00
£16 000 000,00
£18 000 000,00

£4 000 000,00
£6 000 000,00
£8 000 000,00

£2 000 000,00
January
March
May
July

2010
September
November
January
March
May
July

2011
September
November
January
March
May
Impact on Sales

July

2012
September
November
January
March
May
July

2013
September
November
January
March
May
July
2014

September
November
Fixfast UK | Rolling Results

January
March
May
July
2015

September
November
January
March
May
July
2016

September
November
January
March
May
July
2017

September
November
January
2018
 Impact on Sales
Rolling Sales from January 2017
£17 000 000

£16 500 000

£16 000 000

£15 500 000

£15 000 000

£14 500 000

£14 000 000

January February March April May June July August September October November December January February
2017 2018
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 MSI trend
MSI Quantity
600

500

400

300

200

100

0
07.авг 14.авг 21.авг 28.авг 04.сен 11.сен 18.сен 25.сен 02.окт 09.окт 16.окт 23.окт 30.окт 06.ноя 13.ноя 20.ноя 27.ноя 04.дек 11.дек 18.дек

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 Negatives
● Sales did go up for a time, but we couldn’t be sure that it was solely due to the increase in MSIs as we
knew there was going to be a busy period
● In December 2017 the results was lower than in 2016

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 Why did sales drop off?
● We took away the “farming” – but didn’t have the systems in place to have it done properly by other teams
● Result: Sales team became very unhappy because they could see missed opportunities but they
weren’t allowed to develop them.
● We didn’t fully understand what “good-inside-sales” looked like before we started making changes
● We didn’t put in systems to ensure the same customer wasn’t being chased by multiple people. Customers
complained about:
● Being called by multiple people calling them for same leads
● Not knowing who to speak to when they called us
● We had large morale issues through the company as the some of sales team (I had labelled “Sales” as the
constraint and emphasised their importance to the whole team) acted as if they were superior to other
departments and put pressure on other teams. This resulted in marketing, customer service and our
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 Obstacles
● Regular customers, niche market
● We’ve been very slow to develop our pipeline
● The sales team are reluctant to close opportunities
● Struggling to measure the flow
● Struggling to know which action directly contribute to an increase in sales

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 How we overcame the obstacles
● We have reverted to using regional area teams to ensure we are not missing opportunities but:
● We have increased capacity in the CS team
● The sales team now process less than 2% of our orders
● The sales team now know that the CS team will look after customers better than sales people
● The regional sales teams continue to do protected selling time slots
● The KPI for the sales teams is to increase their MSIs
● If teams can’t keep up with leads in their area we will move customers to other teams
● We have allowed sales to do the lead generation function for the time being, whilst we are working on lead
generation automation to allow higher level of sales activity

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 Conclusions
● Sequence is everything
● Ensure there is adequate infrastructure in place prior to pushing sales
● CRM & Pipeline project being set up using the “Critical Chain” CCPM approach

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 Any questions so far?

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 Fixfast USA

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 Our situation & problems
● Setup in 2009
● Overheads growing faster than throughput
● Partnered with Goldratt in October 2017

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 Story
● Detail and video from Maria

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 Conclusions
● We’re not where we need to be yet, but we can see light at the end of the tunnel!
● Focus your efforts to get results
● Clear metrics give the whole team direction
● Systems help you gain control

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 Thank you

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