4GM and Yellowfin partner to optimize Lago Cold Stores warehouse operations with custom Performance Management platform

Australian-based Performance Management consultancy, 4GM, has enabled Brisbane-based warehouse operator, Lago Cold Stores, to enhance its profitability by developing vital benchmarks and KPIs for workforce, client, transaction and product metrics.

To deliver Lago Cold Stores enhanced operational insight, 4GM partnered with global Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics software vendor, Yellowfin, to develop InfoMeasure – a custom Performance Management platform designed specifically for the warehousing and distribution industry.

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“InfoMeasure provides a platform for the commercial or executive management teams to develop better operational strategies,” said 4GM Founder and Managing Director, Stuart Popplewell. “This unique solution pulls together critical operational data from an organizations source systems to empower businesses in the warehousing and distribution industry to measure and optimize commercial performance across their main profit and cost drivers, including labour, stock handling, product types and storage capacity.”

Roger Lago, CEO of Lago Cold Stores, said that InfoMeasure had delivered significant tangible benefits in a small amount of time.

“Within six months of engaging 4GM, InfoMeasure has enabled Lago Cold Stores to significantly reduce its operational costs by increasing workforce utilization by 15 percent,” said Lago. “We’ve been able to identify which employees have over or under allocated workloads, as well as how efficiently each individual is performing each task.”

Beyond labor-related reporting, InfoMeasure has also detected trends in client orders, identifying changes in things such as the number of units per transaction and the cost impact per unit.

“InfoMeasure lets us understand which types of transactions are our most profitable,” said Lago. “We’re then able to drill into the data to reveal which clients are responsible for our most profitable transactions – and during what time period – enabling us to expose other factors, such as seasonal shifts.”

Deeper still, InfoMeasure has enabled Lago Cold Stores to measure, rank and optimize handling time, and therefore cost, by product type.

“We now have a clear picture of which product types are making us money and costing us money,” said Lago. “InfoMeasure has given Lago Cold Stores deep insight into its warehouse operations, enabling us to act on the vital performance metrics that underpin profitability and set KPI benchmarks accordingly.”

Delivered as a fully managed hosted solution, InfoMeasure combines Yellowfin and SQL Server to create a cloud-based environment on AWS, joining data from multiple warehouse and time management systems. The solution comes with a series of pre-packaged industry specific reports, with 4GM then working with clients to develop more reports and dashboards to cater for the particular informational needs of each customer.

Yellowfin Managing Director for APAC, Martyn Reeves, said Yellowfin was proud to provide the reporting and analytics engine for 4GM’s InfoMeasure solution, while offering flexible partnership options to support innovative Independent Software Vendors (ISVs).

“Yellowfin specializes in partnering with ISVs, like 4GM, to help deliver highly specialized reporting and analytics solutions,” said Reeves. “Yellowfin is proud to provide ISVs with a highly customizable BI platform that makes development fast and easy. Yellowfin’s ISV revenue share model also makes integrated BI solutions financially viable for both end-clients and ISVs alike.”

Popplewell said that the inspiration to develop InfoMeasure came about when he noticed an unmet market need through working with clients in the warehousing industry.

“While most businesses in the warehousing industry collected the necessary data to measure and analyze the main cost and profit drivers impacting productivity and efficiency, there was no dedicated solution to help them collate, visualize and make strategic operational decisions based on that information,” said Popplewell. “Warehousing businesses lacked a clear way to bring these key cost and profit drivers together in a unified view of the business. This inhibited organizations’ ability to identify the variables within those core business metrics, which impact the performance and cost of warehouse operations and transactions. Without this type of insight, organizations also lacked the ability to develop appropriate performance benchmarks to determine profitability thresholds for vital aspects of their operations.”

The industry needed a solution that would harness operational and transactional information, from warehouse management systems and time and attendance systems, and combine it to present a complete Performance Management view of the business.

With InfoMeasure, underpinned by Yellowfin’s BI solution, 4GM’s warehousing clients are now able to report and act on the vital performance metrics that underpin profitability and set KPI benchmarks accordingly.

Areas of warehouse performance measurement and management enabled by InfoMeasure include:

• Workforce: Track and improve workforce utilization and efficiency rates
• Storage: Manage and monitor stock levels and storage capacity
• Handling: Measure and optimize handling time and cost by product type and per carton or unit
• Clients: Detect trends in client orders that impact profitability
• Transactions: Analyze profitability by transaction type
• Expected vs actual finances: Track projected cost and revenue against actual figures

About 4GM

4GM provides Performance Management services. At the core of this service is Performance Measuring using Business Intelligence (BI). 4GM’s philosophy is “what you can’t measure, you can’t manage effectively”. 4GM looks to solve this for its customers through the use of BI solutions and services delivered by senior business analysts.

For more information, visit www.4gm.com.au or e-mail info@4gm.com.au

About Lago Cold Stores

A family owned and operated business; Lago Cold Stores opened in 1966 and has grown into one of Australia’s and Queensland’s leading cold storage organizations.

Lago Cold Stores prides itself on being innovative, using the latest technology systems and data services to operate the most efficient and effective cold storage facilities possible.

Lago Cold Stores’ facilities are positioned strategically to benefit its clients, with easy access to the Fisherman’s Island Port Precinct and Gateway Arterial Road Corridor.

About Yellowfin

Yellowfin is a global Business Intelligence (BI) and analytics software vendor passionate about making BI easy. Founded in 2003 in response to the complexity and costs associated with implementing and using traditional BI tools, Yellowfin is a highly intuitive 100 percent Web-based reporting and analytics solution. Yellowfin is a leader in mobile, collaborative and embedded BI as well as Location Intelligence and data visualization.

Over 10,000 organizations, and more than one million end-users across 70 different countries, use Yellowfin every day. For more information, visit www.yellowfinbi.com

For regular news and updates, follow Yellowfin on Twitter (@YellowfinBI), LinkedIn (Yellowfin Business Intelligence), YouTube (Yellowfin Team) or email pr@yellowfin.bi to subscribe to Yellowfin’s free e-newsletter.

For further media information, interviews, images or product demonstration, please contact:

• Lachlan James, Yellowfin Global Communications Manager on +61 (0)3 8617 4954, +61 (0)431 835 658 or lachlan.james@yellowfin.bi
• Stuart Popplewell, 4GM Managing Director on +61 (0)419 996 189 or stuart@4gm.com.au