- Travis Perkins Partnership

Ingredients:

• Dedicated supply store
• E-trading
• Mobile phone technology
• Tailored materials catalogue

In an ever-increasing drive to reduce costs and improve efficiency, partnerships between housing associations and specialist materials suppliers are  becoming increasingly popular.

Seeing this as the solution to inefficiencies in our supply chain, the Trust has launched an innovative partnership with leading builders’ merchant Travis Perkins. Part of a much wider initiative to increase efficiency, the partnership has turned the supply chain around. Travis Perkins is now the Trust’s main supply chain partner and administrator of all maintenance and repairs materials.

Travis Perkins has offered a vast product range and buying power as only the country’s leading builders’ merchants could. The dedicated store at the Trust’s head office site in Telford is a one-off and offers a single access point for maintenance supplies and technical advice.

The partnership also uses other specialist services such as glazing, tool and plant hire (no, not the floral variety!) and joinery. Although these are provided by other suppliers, all purchasing and subsequent invoicing is managed by TP in the dedicated store.

Whilst this may be an avenue that several other housing associations are choosing to take, the unique element of this arrangement is that the store is completely dedicated and bespoke, rather than a separate trade counter in an existing branch, or a distributor simply taking over the running of an organisation’s stores.

The key objectives, including e-trading and van stock management, have all been met and the new partnership arrangements have had a huge impact on the Trust’s business processes and culture. Tradespeople who had previously driven from one supplier to another to stock up on materials can now source them from a single, dedicated supplier and use mobile phone technology to place orders.

Results:

• First year of trading realised a saving of £309,440 on materialsm
• 67K per annum salary savings
• Own tailored materials catalogue
• Procurement expertise has benefited our customers with orders being ‘right first time’. Customer satisfaction with repairs and maintenance has increased from 83% to 94% - brilliant!
• Auditable Open Book arrangements with Profit Share. A profit share return of £13,300 was achieved in year one. This has been used for tenants’ maintenance awareness training days
• Items also procured for planned works e.g. kitchens and bathrooms
• 24 hour access to materials ‘just in time’.
• Out of hours support e.g. materials for boarding up
• Cuts out the need for tradespeople to drive from one supplier to another. Materials are either held as common van stock items or delivered out to site
• Product discount scheme for tenants and employees of the Trust from Travis Perkins branch network
• Total e-business solution – complete move away from paper based systems. Keeping open minded about the future is important.

The Results:

We are currently exploring opportunities for consortium partnerships, joining forces with other housing associations in supply chain projects, to bring about even greater cost savings and efficiencies.

For more information contact David Wells on 01952 217084.