Software for forestry and manufacturing operations.
Mills, forest products companies and manufacturers in BC and beyond: order validation, inventory and tally, production and supply planning, and the integrations between LumberTrack, JD Edwards, Dynamics 365 and everything around them.
What we do
- Order to invoice
- Orders checked at entry — species, grade, treatment, units of measure, pricing authority — then carried through shipping and invoicing without anyone re-keying them.
- Inventory and tally
- Tally, board feet and piece counts that agree across the ERP, the scanners and the invoice, with barcode-enabled cycle counting.
- Supply and production planning
- Demand planning and sales and operations planning connected to the ERP, rather than rebuilt in a spreadsheet beside it every week.
- Multiple sites
- Acquired mills and plants brought onto common processes and systems, after mapping how each site actually works today.
- Reporting across sites
- Reports moved off Crystal onto SQL Server Reporting Services or a modern platform, consistent across every site.
- The plant floor
- Handheld devices, scanners and equipment-connected workflows linked to the enterprise systems, so the office sees what the floor sees.
Where it usually hurts
If one of these sounds familiar, it is the kind of problem we are called in for.
- Every mill closes the month differently, and head office reconciles them by hand.
- Orders reach the mill with species, grade or treatment combinations it cannot supply.
- Inventory in the ERP and inventory in the yard disagree, and only the scanners are telling the truth.
- Demand planning lives in a spreadsheet beside the ERP and is rebuilt every week.
- Reports are in Crystal, and the person who wrote them has moved on.
Where this experience comes from
Our lead analyst's career history, described by sector — not an Elarion client list. More on the About page.
- Senior business analysis across LumberTrack and Dynamics 365 for a multi-mill forest products company: order management, logistics and invoicing, and rollouts to newly merged mills.
- JD Edwards supply chain enhancements at a forest products company: demand planning, sales and operations, inventory control and barcode cycle counting.
- Supply planning across five plants and thirty-five distribution centres for a food manufacturer, and its move from JD Edwards World to EnterpriseOne.
- Two governed AI pilots for a lumber manufacturer: order validation before orders reach the mill, and order intelligence for sales representatives.
The systems behind it.
Most forestry and manufacturing work runs through an ERP. Our system pages cover what we do in each.
Questions buyers ask
- Do you replace LumberTrack or JD Edwards?
- Rarely. The ERP usually stays the system of record. The work is integrating with it, extending it, and building what it does badly beside it.
- Can you work across several mills with different processes?
- Yes — that is often where the work starts. The analysis maps how each site actually runs before deciding what should be common and what can stay local.
- Do you only work in BC?
- No. We are based in Vancouver and work across Canada and the United States; forest products and manufacturing businesses rarely sit in one place.
Further reading
- Replacing spreadsheets with software, without losing what worksThe spreadsheet running your operation is not the problem.
- Off-the-shelf or custom software? How to decideThe default should be to buy.
Related services
Running a mill or a plant?
30 minutes, free. Bring the problem, or the change you already have in mind.