Deck Guardrail Pty Ltd

Established in 1989, Deck Guardrail was the first company in Australia to develop and supply temporary fall protection systems to the construction industry. In 2006, it remains the nation's leading distributor of roof edge protection safety systems for domestic, industrial and commercial building sites.

Headquartered in Melbourne, Deck Guardrail has branch offices in Sydney, Newcastle, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast, and is supported by a network of distributors. The company employs 110 staff and full time contractors, and its annual turnover is in excess of $21 million.

The Business Issue

Prior to 2002, Deck Guardrail relied upon a centralised DOS-based financial system comprised of a number of modules, none of which were integrated. Branch staff packaged up documents at the close of every day and couriered them to head office for processing. While the software had served the company well, technology had moved on and Stephen Ryan, Deck Guardrail's Finance & Administration Manager, was well aware that better solutions were now available.

Ryan commented, "We wanted to bring in a suite of integrated modules that could help to increase administrative efficiency. It was important that whatever we chose had to incorporate hire management capabilities, as 99 per cent of our business is hire equipment." At the same time, the company was keen to establish a distributed system that would allow interstate branches to handle their own input to the financial system.

The Solution

After six months of research, Ryan found only two suitable hire management systems available in Australia. While both offered strong inventory management, neither system was intended as an accounting package and both lacked functions such as a general ledger and accounts receivable. Ryan had to rethink his strategy.

The alternative, Ryan decided, was to find and implement a fully functional, mid range Microsoft-based accounting system that offered strong inventory capabilities. Other considerations included the need for strong support backed up by good research and development. In the short term, Deck Guardrail would work with the new accounting software and one of the two hire management packages. In the longer term, Ryan's intention was for the company to custom develop a hire management module that could be integrated with the accounting software.

In 2002, Deck Guardrail found its accounting software solution and went live with JIWA.

The Result

More than two years down the track, the JIWA software is still working extremely well for the company. The custom written hire management module was developed and implemented in early 2005 and is now working as an integral, integrated component of the overall JIWA solution.

When asked how he feels about the result, Ryan acknowledges that he rarely considers such things. "We have a business to run and targets to reach. To achieve it, we use the best tools we have available. From my perspective, if the software is doing its job and getting us to where we need to be, then I am perfectly happy. When it comes to our accounting software, this is exactly what JIWA is achieving."

The Future

In early 2006, Deck Guardrail merged with Australian Temporary Fencing (ATF), the nation's leading supplier of site security fencing for domestic, industrial and commercial building sites. Since 1994 the ATF business has been using a hire management and accounting suite developed and sourced from Canada.

The combined group will be moving towards a common platform during 2007 and already JIWA has been selected as the system of choice to be implemented at certain ATF sites. Ryan acknowledges that this a true testing ground for the hire management module but is confident that the combination with the strength of the standard JIWA modules will see group-wide embrancements.