Success Stories

Goldstar Transport

Interview with:	Sean Carren , Managing Director
Company Name:	Goldstar Transport
Business Type:	Transport & logistics
Fleet Size:	60
Operational Area:	Western Australia

Challenge

To maintain exceptionally high levels of customer service and operational safety while ensuring profitable new business with blue chip clients.

Solution

TransLogix Sapphire Transport Management Suite - Integrated Transport, Workshop, Mobility, Warehouse, Accounts modules

Benefits 

• Single view of the business enables better decision making
• 100% customer satisfaction
• 30% increase in fleet and operational employees while reducing admin staff
• All expenses and revenue captured

Background

Sean Carren established Goldstar Transport with one prime mover in 2001 and has grown it into a dynamic transport and logistics organisation providing local, intrastate and interstate heavy freight services to prominent customers and large infrastructure projects. Goldstar has a staff of 90 and an extensive range of nearly 60 primemovers and trailers including flat-tops, tautliners, dropdecks and lowloaders, as well as hiab crane, curtainside and tail-lift vehicles. From its headquarters in Perth it also operates two depots and a warehouse as well as a large open storage facility.

The Challenge

Goldstar Transport's Managing Director, Sean Carren saw opportunities for growth but also room for improvement in the key tenets on which his company operates: "First and foremost in everything we do is the safety of our operations. We then build our internal and external success on exceptional levels of customer service and communication. To maintain these standards we needed matching levels of control, visibility and management across the core areas of the business."

Goldstar Transport committed to a major overhaul of the various software packages and manual systems on which it relied. Without a single view of the business the team was concerned about the company's ability to capture all the revenue and all the expenses: "It was an area of doubt, we weren't sure what was slipping between the cracks," outlined Sean Carren.

With 90 full time and part time staff on a mix of salary, wage and contract, payroll was one of Goldstar Transport's most time consuming and difficult tasks.

The Solution

During the evaluation process the Goldstar Transport team was impressed by the TransLogix solution's ability to centralise all functional requirements and information into the one system. Goldstar Transport implemented the integrated Transport, Accounts, Warehouse and Workshop modules of TransLogix Sapphire suite in 2008.

Moving to a single view of the business "took a bit to get it tidy but it has brought a new discipline and great value to the business," was one of the comments made by Carren.

The Benefits

The implementation of Sapphire has supported Goldstar Transport's considerable revenue growth from an increasing base of blue chip clients.

"Sapphire has become a point of difference for Goldstar Transport and a major bonus for customer service. Not only can we present to potential customers how we put the right vehicle and driver in the right place at the right time, but we back that up in practice.

 "Our ability to tailor the chain of responsibility means we provide 100% satisfaction to blue chip customers and on many occasions has become the benchmark," he said.

Significantly, while the Goldstar Transport fleet has grown nearly 30 percent in the three years since the Sapphire implementation, the staff growth has been in operational areas. There is now a lower ratio of administrative to transport staff.

With discipline across the business, Goldstar Transport has reduced its areas of doubt and error rates: "Drivers don't move without a job number, nothing leaves the warehouse without the right paperwork, we have the right spare parts. Overall we have improvements across the entire business," he continued.

With accurate data at their fingertips, management has greater confidence in their decision making. According to Sean Carren: "No matter which area of the business or which site they work from, our staff now have access to the information they need. This reduces the pressure on everyone."

Goldstar Transport has been able to reduce the average age of its vehicles using the Workshop module to automatically allocate the most cost effective vehicle to every job. The older vehicles are generally better suited to short haul work. The newer vehicles, being efficient and with service back up, are likely to be allocated the more demanding jobs. "Being able to maximise our investment in the fleet has been a really big winner for us," he said.

The company also provides a short term warehousing service for customers which includes sourcing and operating the facility to client requirements. The Sapphire Warehouse functionality now "makes the efficient running of these remote sites much easier."

Sean Carren concluded: "While the transition to Sapphire was complex and took time, and further implementations and change will also be challenging, TransLogix puts in the effort to get us through. They are constantly pushing the envelope to improve their product."

Anybody who has ever spoken to Sean Carren will have heard his motto, "failure is not an option". With this mindset Sean continues to drive the business forward with Sapphire providing the platform for success.

http://www.goldstartransport.com.au/

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