Process Change: Choosing CET Designer as a Dealer Strategy

One Dealer’s PerspectiveBrad Baker

Presentation:•Background-who are we?•Where we were with tools and processes.•How we implemented CET•Where we are now•Why we chose CET and Canvas•Summary of benefits and decision factors•Q&A

**please feel free to ask questions as we go**

Who are we?

*Location - Cambridge,Ontario, Canada*25 years - Established in 1985*Small market dealer- Pop ~500,000 * 4 divisions- Used, Mid Market, Interiors(Haworth), M5* 23 staff, work with A&D, and 3rd party install* Member of the atWork Group.

Electronic tools--Where we wereBusiness System $$$$Email- Outlook $Microsoft Office $

Spec tools:Giza $$AutoCAD $$$Project Matrix $Haworth Orderline free

Process – Where we were• Time consuming for design and quote generation. Back and forth

process. Painful process for customer and dealer. • Time consuming and expensive to make revisions and show customer

different options.• Difficult to justify small to medium size projects. Process cost

minimized or eliminated profit.• Cost of errors due to incorrect specification were higher than goal.• Expensive and time-consuming to get a designer trained on product

and multiple electronic tools.• Installation plans time consuming and not intuitive.

Dealer Pain

Costly and inefficient.Gaps: • within the software• integration of

different programs

• symbols libraries• use and training • seemed like constant

upgrading (change)

Maintain software

Training

Gaps

Errors

$$$$

Along comes Canvas:Haworth’s Private brand of CET

Pros:•Supported by Haworth•Specifier of choice for future

Cons: •Phased symbol library•Yet another tool

atWork’s 5-year Mission

We made the decision that within 5 years, we would be down to ONE SPEC TOOL.

CET Designer with Canvas and Project Symbols allows us to complete all of our specification, designs and renderings.

We are three years into this mission.

How did we implement CET?

Phased in implementation for 3 main reasons:• Symbols library were incomplete• Hardware upgrading• Ease the uncertainty of our design staff

My advice is to have your top designer test the total process and become the go-to person.

Process – Where we are now• Faster quote generation. Estimate 40% faster turnaround. Better level

of customer service.• Fast and easy to make revisions and show customer different options. • Easy to do small to medium size projects and have them be profitable.

Building relationships to keep customers of all sizes.• Lower cost of errors due to incorrect specification.• Easy to get a new designer trained. CET protects them from making

mistakes. Able to contribute almost immediately. • Install plans automatically generated. Happy installers = fast and easy

installations.

An example ...Google Waterloo

What’s Happened- Last three years• All 6 atWork locations have transitioned to CET• Reduced Giza licences from 11 to one. Saving $.• AutoCAD stayed on version 2004. Saving $. • ProjectSymbols has 90%+ of products we sell. In fact, we

encouraged two manufacturers that we sell (Belair and Tayco) to get symbols created in ProjectSymbols for use in CET Designer.

• Sharing of design resources-workload and training.• Independent Service Companies, using CET, have started up.• All electronic tools have improved which has closed some gaps within

the software and with the integration of different tools.

Summary on why we chose CET.• Tangible savings on cost of technology.• Rules-based specification helps eliminate errors and

speeds up process. • Creates better internal process• Allows better customer service• Multiple outputs from CET: specs, install plans,

renderings, movies. All in one tool.• Haworth is behind Configura• Configura has great training and customer support.

We are happy we switched!

• Thank you

• Questions??