From its Ipswich headquarters, Fork Rent plc delivers a complete range of construction and civil engineering self-drive plant, including access/platforms, diggers, dumpers, excavators, forklifts and telehandlers, to customers across the country. With a fleet of over 1,600 telehandler machines, it has been rated the number one supplier of telehandlers in the UK by Cranes & Access magazine and is JCB’s largest telehandler customer worldwide.
Established in 1965, Fork Rent plc is still a family-owned business. Substantial investment in high quality plant – its fleet has one of the youngest age profiles in the industry – and a dedicated approach to customer service have led to year-on-year growth approaching 30% in recent years.
The Challenge
Elaine Miller, Operations Director at Fork Rent, explains why the company’s investment in machines went hand in hand with a willingness to re-think its IT strategy: “We’ve experienced phenomenal growth over the past three to four years and while this is very rewarding, it needs careful management. Evolving from a relatively small, family-run concern into a major player in the sector requires the support of good, solid systems. Refreshing our IT infrastructure was an important element in our plans for growth.”
Stressing the importance of maintaining a personalised approach to customer service, Elaine adds, “With rising order volumes coming in from around 1,200 customers, we need to maximise efficiency. Growth must never be allowed to compromise our service standards.”
The Solution
Fork Rent is a long-time customer of MCS, who originally installed their UNIX-based system. Elaine and her colleagues realised that a move to a new IT platform would offer increased support to serve their rapidly expanding client base and help them hit their growth targets.
Fork Rent opted for Microsoft-Windows based MCS-rm from MCS. As a proven system with many customer references, it was considered more than capable of meeting existing and future business requirements. The MCS-rm solution was rolled out across the business, supporting accounts, the hire desk, the service team and senior management.
The Benefits
Fork Rent has seen many manual processes extensively automated. Elaine says, “MCS-rm has already helped us significantly. Processes ranging from order-taking to back-office functions such as invoicing have all become more streamlined, while features such as the availability planner have become indispensable in helping us to understand and maximise utilisation rates.”
She estimates, “At our present rate of growth, if we didn’t have MCS-rm, we might have needed to increase headcount and administration cost, which could have led to rate increases for our customers. It’s an accurate measure of how much we’ve increased our efficiency.”
Elaine cites the specific example of managing Road Fund Licences, which used to be handled through a spreadsheet. “It was a very time-consuming and non value-added process to input the data, with an increased risk of human error. Now with all the information stored in MCS-rm, we can easily run reports every month on which vehicles are due for re-licensing.”
The service history for some 2,000 machines and vehicles is also managed on the system. Reports showing which machines are due for a service means that preventative maintenance is managed more effectively. “This both minimises expensive breakdowns and improves customer satisfaction,” comments Elaine. “We place a high priority on regular preventative maintenance and the system ensures this policy is consistently followed, while saving time on administration.”
Business Intelligence within MCS-rm has already delivered improved analysis: “Rather than managing individual spreadsheets, we can spend time using information to examine our customer relationships, our costs, and any emerging threats and opportunities. Just as important is the ‘snapshot’ that gives me a high-level summary of current deliveries and collections. It’s easier to keep on top of everything and if I spot any anomalies I can immediately investigate.”
Another benefit will be improved control and tracking of plant safety certifications. “We’ve had to print out sixty of these today, which is not unusual and can take up to an hour of someone’s time. It will be much easier to have everything on the system, as we’ll be able to record and report on certifications, proactively schedule any safety checks, and print out the certificate automatically with the contract,” says Elaine.
The Future
Since installation of the core system, new functionality has been activated to extend the scope of MCS-rm, including Purchase Order Processing, an enhanced interface between the company’s Sage 50 Accounts software and MCS-rm, and the Workshop & Maintenance module.
Fork Rent customers currently receive a detailed breakdown of their account and this may be enhanced in the future with secure access to their data through a Customer Web Portal.
Elaine ends by saying, “We’ve every intention of maximising the power of MCS-rm to automate our processes wherever possible and to support our ambitions for the business. We’re looking forward to producing reports at the touch of a button without going through thousands of items on spreadsheets. This improved efficiency is essential to ensure our continued growth and more importantly customer satisfaction.”
To find out how MCS-rm could help your business, call us on +44 (0)1628 828000 or use our enquiry form.
View All Case Studies