Panel Source International. Lean and green with the Mac.
When James McLeod’s grandfather started a lumber mill in 1943, awareness of forest sustainability was a far cry from the industry norm. A generation later, the extended family business – now called Panel Source International – manufactures and distributes wood-based building materials that offer key environmental attributes and qualify for use in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental (LEED) building program.
In keeping with its green ethic, Panel Source aims to stay as nimble and efficient as possible. One way the company achieves this is by running the business end-to-end on the Mac.
Headquartered in Alberta, Canada, Panel Source’s manufacturing and warehouse operations are centralized in Tacoma, Washington, to facilitate convenient shipping to customers throughout North America. The company takes a customer-driven view of its business. “Green is the biggest trend in our industry,” says James McLeod, chief operating officer at Panel Source. “We pride ourselves on having product in stock and readily available without long lead times, as well as having extensive knowledge of Forest Stewardship Council and LEED programs.”
Providing customers with forestry products on-demand requires operational systems that enable a high level of supply-chain visibility, an efficient distribution system, and smart financial management. To keep sales costs down, a large percentage of Panel Source’s sales are generated via Internet marketing. The company drives a lean supply chain by functioning as a wholesaler, retailer, and distributor and maintaining a healthy just-in-time inventory system. For larger customers, Panel Source mills or buys from mills, providing the most complete product line in the business. Rather than visit three or four vendors, customers go to Panel Source for 100 percent green, one-stop building materials shopping.
More efficient with Mac
In 2005, the leadership at Panel Source decided that the PC platform was far from satisfactory in meeting the needs of the rapidly growing company for a variety of reasons. Antivirus software was expensive and in constant need of updating, random problems in Microsoft Outlook caused ongoing communication problems, printer settings were complicated, and third-party software was just plain difficult to use. In addition, new employee training cycles were too long, and the life span of hardware was limited to about 18 months. The company was tired of expensive backup procedures, inflexible accounting software, and the long wait for equipment replacements. When a steep growth curve at Panel Source occurred in 2006, the company stepped back and reassessed its system needs. Later that year, the company gave up on its PC-based enterprise system and switched to the Mac.
Mike Plouffe, IT director, who had been a Mac convert for several years, took the lead, finding that he was able to implement the change almost immediately. Due to the reliability and ease of use of the Mac, employees welcomed the transition with open arms.
Today, in addition to multiple desktop and laptop Mac systems, Panel Source’s Mac infrastructure consists of an Xserve system running Mac OS X Server for web hosting and Drupal software for content management. Mac OS X Server also handles secure VPN connections, as well as file-sharing among employees. Everyone has access to eight network-attached USB storage drives for storage. They also use Time Machine for convenient, automatic local back-ups.
What turned out to be the biggest operational advantage to the Mac migration is how Cognito MoneyWorks running on the Mac transformed the resource planning and accounting functions throughout the enterprise. MoneyWorks handles everything from quoting, orders, and inventory management to sales and payroll. The software is so flexible and powerful that the team can even use it to measure linear feet costs, improve the look and feel of balance sheets, and achieve more accurate and reliable inventory management—a critical step in the company’s rapid marketing cycle. The sales team can drill down into specific data and easily customize reports and forms. “In an operation like ours, financial management and visibility into the supply chain are everything,” says McLeod. “MoneyWorks running on the Mac offers rock-solid reliability and feature set that supports all of our core business processes - including dealing with taxes and currencies across two different countries.”
All the tools of the trade
With their warehouse in the U.S. and offices headquarters in Canada, international communications replete with video, file transfer, and screen sharing on iChat are a daily habit. iChat is also the staple that IT staff uses for remote diagnostics and for walking people through server setups. The Panel Source staff also relies on built-in communication and collaboration tools in Mac OS X, including iCal, Address Book, and Mail, to stay productive and organized.
For business documents, iWork, Apple’s productivity suite, integrates smoothly with Microsoft Office for the Mac, yet most staff members prefer using Keynote, Numbers, and Pages over Microsoft Office productivity tools. The MacBook enables employees to work at home, where they appreciate the ability to keep contacts, addresses, and media synched with their iPhones and iPods.
Productivity gains
When the staff moved from PC desktops to Mac laptops, employee morale soared. “It’s not something that we can readily quantify, but I can definitely tell you that because of the Mac, people are happier coming to work, love taking their computers home at night, and are generally more effective and productive,” says McLeod, who really appreciates the secure mobility his Mac affords him when working from home. In an industry where the workforce is traditionally older, McLeod says it’s been rewarding to see how successfully employees have embraced the Mac and Apple software.
Compared to their competition, Panel Source has the distinct advantage of being able to quickly modify critical business documents, which makes their customers happy and helps manage inventory better. Within two minutes of an architect revising specifications, their team can generate and email Adobe PDF documents of updated quote sheets. In addition, staff is able to modify forms on a weekly basis as products and costs vary, and post them to the Internet via the easy-to-use third-party content management system Drupal.
Productivity gains and internal cost savings add up fast, according to McLeod. “From reduced expenses on parts and service to eliminating the need for additional backup software, the move to the Mac fits in with our company culture and our green ethic. Our serious commitment to the manufacture of sustainable products gives us a clear conscience, and our adoption of the Mac underpins our ability to be leaders in our field.”
