Agrovista and Supply Chain Consultancy team case study

Agrovista UK Limited is a leading supplier of agronomy advice, seed and crop protection products and precision farming services. Working in partnership with arable, fruit, vegetable, horticultural and amenity sectors, Agrovista is committed to helping customers manage their businesses more efficiently and more profitably. With roots originating more than 60 years ago, Agrovista offers a unique blend of local experience, research-based expertise, customer-based knowledge and trusted relationships; practicing values of honesty, integrity and fairness across all aspects of the business.

From a network of around 28 warehouse and distribution sites, Agrovista maintains a high quality service for all UK farmers.  As part of its existing improvement projects the Agrovista management team invited the Supply Chain Consultancy team (SCC) to conduct a top down review to identify further initiatives that would improve the performance and productivity of the nationwide supply chain activities.

The initial engagement identified a range of short to medium term initiatives and highlighted the opportunities available through more timely performance measurement, reporting and targeting.  A small team quickly gathered data that was available from the existing systems and processes and began to mock up example KPIs and dashboards.  The challenge was clear: how do you gather and accurately report sales, purchases, inventory levels and performance across nearly 50 branches with data that is pretty cumbersome in its current form?

The Agrovista team specified the requirements for the dashboard, including the need to use data that was readily available, usability for those with beginner Excel skills, and a quick refresh routine.

Technical experts from the SCC team developed a simple 10 step dashboard that used the existing data formats and was suitable for those with even the most basic Excel skills. It featured easy to use filters and selection methods to simplify the production of dynamic dashboards that could present data at a national level and importantly for each individual depot, at the touch of a button.  Using two years of sales data and inventory snapshots, the dashboards helped the team identify more than £1m of excess stocks!

Paul Wilson, from Logistics UK’s SCC team, comments: “The team at Agrovista needed to quickly evaluate and report performance and have access to dashboards that could be updated in minutes.  Not everyone is familiar with databases and Business Intelligence (BI) tools so developing a simple, repeatable routine in Excel using their existing data was the obvious solution.  We are happy to be able to add value to a great UK business.”

Jaimie Appleton, National Supply Manager at Agrovista said, “Agrovista has been focused over the years on continuous improvement. The expertise and support of the team in Logistics UK has allowed us to drive our strategy forward, ensuring we move into the next level of operational efficiency and service for our customers which is centred in everything we do.”

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