Get even more out of Tracelink

When we started Tracelink, the first customers - forging companies - got a tool to ensure traceability on steel to meet a troublesome EU directive. With Tracelink, the blacksmiths got control of the certificates, and then it was just "business as usual". But did business improve?

Maybe.

Since then, blacksmith customers requested time recording, which then became part of Tracelink's offer package. It made it a lot easier to prepare the payslips, but the business mainly improved a little because time was saved on timesheets and payslips. Over time, we have had customers in many industries who have requested new functions that have been added to Tracelink - invoicing, inventory management, purchasing, documentation of quality, etc. The functions have helped Tracelink's customers to overcome challenges in everyday life, but the question is whether there is even more to gain.

We think there is! Peter Drucker, who is an international guru in business development, once said something like: "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it". You cannot improve your business with certainty just because you measure it - but the chance is there.

Post-calculation

The fact is that the employees painstakingly register a lot of information which - possibly - used in the right context - could be of great importance for the development of the business. For customers who use e-conomic for financial management, we can additionally combine all data collected by Tracelink with all the accounting data , located in e-conomic. The most obvious thing is, of course, to make a post-calculation of all orders; what is the revenue and what are the costs. What that calculation looks like varies from company to company and from industry to industry, but Tracelink can tailor the calculation to the individual company.

Excerpt from post-calculation.

When you work systematically with post-calculation reports, you suddenly have the opportunity to find patterns in production. There may be conditions that give rise to making improvements to the processes:

• Are there types of orders that systematically provide a better - or worse - coverage contribution than others?
• Is the offer calculation systematically biased when it comes to certain customers?
• Are there subcontractors who charge overtime?
• Are there certain phases of an order process that take too long?
• Are there materials that are always in short supply?

The patterns, which become visible obviously depends on the data basis, so it is important that you consider what information you need.

Benchmarks

Systematic analysis of post-calculations can be quite time-consuming, but in everyday life there are alternatives that can provide quick clues about the state and direction of the business. Tracelink can display different types of benchmarks in the control panel, which can be useful clues about the business. In another article you can read about how auto painters in the Tracelink control panel can benchmark their business up against the average for other Tracelink customers in the industry. These numbers are mostly meant as markers; is it going well or not so well compared to the last measurement. But the figures are also the first steps on the way in an analysis of the business and how it can be optimised; these are comparable measurements which can reveal trends.

Benchmarks could e.g. be:

• Salaries per converted crown.
• Kilometers driven per converted crown.
• Profit on orders held up against deviations in delivery time
• Profit on order held up against number of employees on order
• Revenue per sales lead per time allowed for sale

- just to name a few banal examples.

February 2021