Syncron's retail inventory management solution helps Scot JCB impress customers

Scot JCB Creates the Exceptional Customer Experience

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

The Scot JCB Group is made up of four different companies: Scot JCB, Scot Plant Seals, Scot Industrial Air, and Scot Agri. We supply products, services, and parts to the construction, agricultural, food, and waste industries all across the north of the United Kingdom.

Scot JCB is very much a business built on its reputation of after sales service.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Scot JCB is a family-run business where customer satisfaction and getting the customer up and running as quickly as possible, is at the forefront of our minds. Our customers come back to us time and time again for parts, service, and missions because of the availability we have, and the ability to get the machines up and running in a timely manner. If we can improve in the parts side, we can improve in the service side, because we can get out to the jobs quicker if we have the parts in stock.

Our off-the-shelf availability, since we implemented Syncron, has gone up somewhere in between 5 and 10 percent depending on the supplier. And also our inventory has reduced considerably, therefore giving us a cost saving, but also increasing customer satisfaction.

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

We were always told that Syncron would increase the breadth of your stock but decrease the depth. So basically we would have fast moving items that we would have less of, but more coming in on a regular basis. But you would have more of those items that don’t move quite as often, and I can definitely confirm that it works.

Syncron very much speeds up the order process incredibly. We, between myself and my colleague, by that I mean one person, we will have all orders done, for all depots, on a daily basis, in one hour.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Without Syncron our job would be so much more difficult, and many more people would be needed for the job than we have at this moment.

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Within Syncron you can look at an individual line order, see what other depots have in stock.

You can see usage at that particular depot, you can see the sales history, you can see everything from within Syncron without having to go into your business system at all. Which again is a good savings, you don’t have to flip between screens, which is a real time saver.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

It is a great product. The time savings we have with it, and the inventory savings, outweigh the investment in the system.

Scot JCB – Flexible Technology Key to Evolving Customer Demands

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Well, it’s a very different year, as it has been for everyone. It has shown that we have the ability, with software like Syncron to certainly be more flexible in our working practices. Not necessarily having to be in the offices to do the job. But in terms of our customer facing environment, I don’t believe very much has changed. We’ve tried to remain as consistent as possible.

It has allowed us to be very flexible in that we could place our orders, and we could adjust our orders as well, to try and guard against supplier shortages and things that would change lead time. To increase our stock levels, in order to continue to be as present as possible as far as the customer is concerned.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Yes, we adjusted the Syncron lead time from four days to eight, just for a temporary period of time, just to give you that extra bit of cushion, for parts taking longer to arrive.

We found that our customers were slightly more demanding during the pandemic. They wanted their machines up and running as quickly as possible. We’ve kept the customer at the forefront of our minds at all points in time. And had them up and running as quickly as possible.

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

Towards the latter part of the year it seemed to take a long time for problems to filter through, but we did have some fast moving parts from JCB that did run very, very low. But, with the flexibility of Syncron allowing us to change lead times, that definitely did improve off-the-shelf availability earlier in the year.

We have been fortunate enough to be on the system for awhile when this pandemic hit, so we had pretty good knowledge of the whole system to make it play to our advantage, and use our strengths and knowledge to make it work for us.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

In the short term, for our industry, in 2021 we are going to find an increased demand for parts as machines are not so readily available at the moment, due to the pandemic and manufacturing.

Once the manufacturing gets back up to speed, I think things will level out and go back to pre-pandemic times where we will be supporting warranty as well as the customer.

Scot JCB Identifies Trends to Better Manage Inventory

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

We centrally control JCB but we have allowed some of our other staff to become involved with other suppliers. Within Syncron we probably have at least 20 suppliers and we are looking to bring a few more in.

Simply because it is so successful in terms of, you never miss a sale, it will always suggest you order a replacement. You don’t have to, but you always have that suggestion in front of you to review.

Stuart McCarlie, Assistant Parts Manager / Scot JCB

The more suppliers we can get onto Syncron, the easier it is to manage our stock. And if we can get these suppliers to buy in, we will get annual parts return with very little or no handling charges on returned parts.

Ryan Espie, Group Parts Manager / Scot JCB

We differ from others who use the system in that we do it centrally, but we feel that gives us a greater element of control, and a clearer picture from a management perspective as to where all stock is, and anomalies that come from anything that we are ordering as we go.

So, Syncron will also look to identify slower moving items at various other depots. We can save huge amounts of money by moving stock at, for example our northern depots which might have different machinery parts than ones in the Midlands or southern depots. And we can move stock between the depots that you’ve already bought and paid for and be used at another depot. Otherwise you would probably, with a normal ordering system, be ordering from the supplier without knowing you had surplus elsewhere.

It is surprising what the system can identify. Like some old radiator that cost 600 or 700 pounds that has been sitting on a shelf in a northern depot for some unknown reason, and maybe we have sold 2 or 3 in a depot much further south.

It is genuinely surprising looking at it sometimes: 1 – There is no way you would ever pick up on it in any other system, and 2 – Just the benefit you can gain from not having to purchase another one of those radiators whilst unknowingly having it in another location that is not moving and will not sell.