Foster Yeoman

“Now we can confidently throw away our original documents”

The Company
A family run business since 1923, Foster Yeoman Ltd are now widely recognised as one of the key players in the supply and distribution of aggregates and asphalt. As a company that began life with just one quarry and 100 employees, they now have 3 quarries and 9 depots across the country, employing 550 people. They also have regular dealings with another 23 depots across Northern Europe.

The activities of the company are traditional, but the business practices employed today are far from old fashioned. As part of Foster Yeoman’s commitment to delivering a professional and caring relationship to its valued customers and suppliers, business processes are constantly reviewed and improved.

The Problem
One of the major functions in the business is maintaining accurate records of weighbridge tickets, ensuring they are immediately available upon customer request. Historically these tickets were supplied to Foster Yeoman on a weekly basis from various weighbridges, but were often delayed or even mislaid on the way. Those that were received would then be sorted and filed in alphabetical order according to the haulier used.

Once organised, the tickets were stored and stacked in boxes at the Foster Yeoman headquarters at Marston House in Frome. After two months of being stored in this way the boxes and their contents were sent away to be microfilmed and were then returned two or three weeks later. If a customer queried an invoice, the operator would have to physically retrieve the signed weighbridge ticket from either the heavy boxes or from searching through microfilm tapes. Sometimes this even involved contacting the microfilming company to find the document if it was off site at the time.

The document would then be photocopied or printed out so that a copy could be posted to the customer for approval, a process which took at least ten days to complete in total, consequently holding up payment of the invoice and so affecting Foster Yeoman’s cash flow.

The Solution
By implementing the e-docs’ document management solution, customer requests and queries can now be dealt with immediately. The weighbridge tickets, typically around 1700 per day, are scanned electronically into the system on the day they are received and the originals are immediately discarded. The e-docs system uses barcode technology that easily identifies the barcodes on the weighbridge tickets and gives each record a unique ID based on the ticket number and the depot number.

With a small investment in technology, e-docs has drastically improved the management of these records, both improving customer service and reducing costs.

The Result
Sandra Freeborn, POD Administrator for Foster Yeoman is very enthusiastic: “The e-docs system is great, I can do everything I need to without leaving my chair.”

Customer requests are now met within hours instead of days. Simply by searching the system for the relevant ticket number, Sandra can electronically send a copy of the weighbridge ticket using fax or even email.

Martin Day, Information Systems Manager, adds: “This is a good system that has given us real benefits. Since the installation of the e-docs system Foster Yeoman have realised a 10% reduction in staffing requirements and we expect to exceed savings of at least £23,000 over the next three years through a reduction in storage and microfilming costs”.

The Future
Foster Yeoman are looking to further exploit the benefits of e-docs by utilising the system in their purchase ledger and accounts departments. This will streamline the need for documentation still further and bring vast improvements and cost savings to the business.