The Project: " Business Process Enhancement"

Background

Berry Bros. & Rudd Ltd is a leading UK Wine Merchant, specialising in Fine Wine retailing as well as broking and investment management services. The Head Office is in Central London, whilst Telesales, Buying and other functions are carried out at its fully bonded warehouse in Hampshire. Other activities include wholesale supply to catering companies and restaurants.

The company had recently implemented a completely new Sales Order Processing and Warehouse Management System and a new management team wished to review current practices and procedures and to enhance business systems and processes. Inter-departmental communication was identified as an area requiring particular improvement.

Activities

Bisham Consulting was asked to carry out:

• A review of current Business Processes throughout the company,
• A review of Warehousing and Distribution operating processes, and to identify and specify system enhancements required to improve business processes.
• A series of one-to-one meetings were held with key personnel in the Head Office, the local buying and sales offices, the warehouses and the retail outlets.
• Documents were produced, circulated and revised according to input and comments received. These included Process Maps detailing activities at all levels of the business.

Outputs

• A complete written reference manual of Warehousing and Distribution activities was produced and training provided as required.
• The system provider was asked to produce system enhancements to improve business processes in certain specified areas.
• Business Processes throughout the business were documented and detailed inter-departmental Service Level Agreements were produced along with associated reporting requirements.

Results

• Inter-departmental communication improved and departments were able to work together to improve customer service levels
• Teams understood what was required of them and how the systems and business processes could support their activities
• Warehouse teams were able to cope with increased levels of throughput without compromising service
• The company has fully documented process maps to use as a base for future process changes
• The company has fully documented warehouse procedures in use as reference documents for ongoing operations and training purposes.
• BB&R were able to provide full procedural details to HMRC during an audit of the bonded warehouse.