Steed and Evans is a construction company and construction materials supplier. Based in Kitchener, they have a gravel pit in Heidelberg, and an asphalt plant in each of Kitchener and Cambridge. Steed and Evans is responsible for both gravel and asphalt supply and some government or municipality road maintenance, including work done along the 401, continuing through to Toronto.

        Through industry contacts, Steed and Evans heard of Slofstra Software Inc. (SSI) and SHIP, SSI's software application for companies in the aggregate and asphalt business. SHIP is an integrated software application which dispatches and monitors trucks, prints a weigh-scale ticket, and collects information for billing purposes.

        Members of the Steed and Evans staff attended demonstrations of the SHIP software, and were enthused about the features they would be able to use in the program, especially the unattended integration between scalehouse and office. The product appeared to meet Steed and Evans' needs. The result of a more thorough evaluation was that SSI had the best solution on price and performance; SSI was awarded the contract.

        The scope of the plan for implementing SHIP into Steed and Evans gradually grew as Steed and Evans became more aware of what was available to them. One of the prerequisites of the implementation was a barcode swipe system that automates the truck check-in, check-out process. Each truck would have its own barcode card, so that when each truck entered or exited the pit, instead of having to key in all the specific product and delivery information manually, Steed and Evans could simply swipe the truck's card and display the information automatically on the computer.

        SSI had extensive experience working with barcodes and RF equipment, and met this challenge capably. "It was challenging, but ultimately [the barcode feature] was running smoothly within about two weeks of going live," says John Dorlas of SSI.

        Steed and Evans' old system had not been fully reliable. It was supported by only one programmer, and the connectivity relied on manual uploads and downloads. Also, the customer information had to be individually entered at each location. The SHIP software turned out to be an excellent upgrade. "It's more reliable and more consistent in the reporting," says Lyla Schoen of Steed and Evans.

        A major benefit of the new system was the introduction of an integrated system. Before, all of the remote locations and different categories of information were controlled separately; with the new SHIP system, all of the information at the different distributed locations could be controlled through a central system. This ensured that all information, from pricing to codes, was consistent throughout the organization. This consistency was also maintained automatically; every night, the central system was scheduled to pull all updates from the remote sites automatically, or the update could be done with a simple push of a button during the day.

        "There's better communication between [the office] and the pits," adds Lyla Schoen.