MillMaster - Looking to the Future

Agribusiness, and in particular Feed Compounding, have been hard hit by ever tightening margins, more demanding customers, the global marketplace, new legislation and traceability as well as various disaster scenarios such as BSE and more recently Avian Flu.

In response to these pressures BMS has always prided itself on focusing on the business benefits of its products, and providing software solutions to support business issues rather than providing technology for the sake of technology. We believe this ensures our customers survive in an ever demanding marketplace with the best solution available.

However, it would be wrong of us to wait until agribusiness is ready for new technology before we look at its capability and how we can incorporate it into our products. New technology is being developed all the time, but the skill is knowing when to adopt it and identifying how it might be incorporated for your benefit.

For a long time, MillMaster has had a simple tried and tested look of straight forward text and solid lines. Moving around the screen is generally sequential using the ‘Enter’ key on the keyboard. An experienced operator will know all the hidden shortcuts and will be able to enter, for example, an order over the phone from the customer in twenty seconds or less without even looking at the screen. Simple and effective but with rich functionality.

Staff such as sales representatives who are out on the road have been used to having paper copies of invoices and trading history to reference when visiting a customer.
A quick call on the mobile at the end of the farm drive will confirm the current level of debt just in case a payment has been received that day or an order taken.
Such approaches have and will continue to work and for some of our customers this
will be their preferred way of operating for some considerable time. In a similar vein, some customers undertake monthly least-cost formulations and cannot understand others who do not reformulate for the whole season, so we recognise that one solution does not fit all.

However, despite the above, there has been a significant change in technology and capability in the last twelve months which we feel will benefit your business.

Internet-style access to MillMaster – improving the use and presentation

We are now developing MillMaster for use over the internet with familiar browser-style screens (icons, mouse, graphs, pictures) as well as for staff who are remote from the office. Familiarity with the browser screens will reduce training time for new recruits. The way the functionality is presented on the screen will help ensure more of your staff explore and make the most of MillMaster.

For example, the capability of this interface to show graphs will allow information to be displayed in summary form.

The new browser layout also allows more information on the screen enabling a grouping together of screens that would normally be on separate menu options. This is especially true in our new single customer view, where from a single screen, customer service staff can now access virtually all the information about a customer.

It allows you to see credits pending for say poor quality feed, to see whether you have been under or over delivering, to view the farm enterprise details (eg acreage, animal numbers, feed competitors), or to know if the customer is close to their credit limit. Using this information can expand the role of customer services staff and in cases where you have put sales staff into customer services there are opportunities to cross-sell products, to discuss new requirements as well as knowing what standard of customer service you have been providing.

Expanding our horizons further, we have developed a managers’ ‘dashboard’ where, for example, a Production Manager will be able to see at a glance a graph of mill throughput showing the key performance indicators.
This includes shift throughput, equipment performance such as average tonnage through the presses, any significant breakdowns or events in the last 24 hours and number of orders waiting to be made. The dashboard style can be expanded to cover Customer Services Managers and the information relevant to them, such as orders taken, short or over deliveries and order turnaround.

A big help is the move by many of you to the larger cheaper screens (£130 - £140 for a good quality 19" LCD screen).

Improving access to MillMaster for out of office staff and customers

Sales staff wanting to place an order or requiring a full up to date picture of the customer’s account when they are on-farm, can do so using a simple hand held device such as a Blackberry, HP iPAQ or even a mobile phone. If they want to check a formulation or price the customer has been paying, they can get that information using exactly the same software as their colleagues in the office.

This removes the need for printed reports for sales staff and gives you more routes to market via customers and sales staff, who will now be able to place their own orders. It could also reduce the pressure on customer services having to provide up to date information on a customer’s account as and when requested by sales staff, often at very short notice. The functionality can also be expanded to those staff working from home or non-office locations.

The future

• The changes outlined above will support you in many ways:
• Where you are looking to expand the role of customer services into selling over
  the phone.
• Maximising the on-farm time of sales staff by providing them with accurate and more comprehensive information as and when it is needed.
• Helping you maximise staff productivity, whether they are in or out of the office.
• Providing information in easy to assimilate graphs and in a summary ‘dashboard’ style so that managers can quickly and easily identify which areas of their responsibility require attention.

This is an exciting time for you the customer, BMS and MillMaster. There are a number of articles in this magazine that go into our new technology in more detail but if you are interested in what we are doing, please call us and speak to Richard or Steve to arrange a demonstration.