by Natalie Edwards

Innovision Boats, Auckland – Success Story

 

‘The big reason for it was we didn't have to allocate someone's time, take them off building a boat, fitting out a boat, my time from sales or developing the business. And the product's just there, in the cupboard. It's great.'

 

Simon and the team at Innovision Boats tell us how QUICKSTOCK has helped them get more boats out on the water….

Tell us a bit about Innovision Boats…

 

Innovision Boats is an Auckland based company. The company was started 11 years ago by Simon Minoprio. He designed the boats that they have today.

‘That just came from my experience in boating sailing overseas and being exposed to lots of different designs all over the world. So through the design of our boats that's the main difference, the key point is the plumb bow. The features of the plumb bow include a finer entry point and along the water line which improves the ride in the water.

In the last 3 years we've managed to win 5 Hutch Wilco Boat Show awards for varying thin categories including best fishing boat under 8 meters.  

Our goal at Innovision was to produce one of the softest riding aluminium boats on the market, which we've achieved. And 6 years later it's still working.’

How did you manage consumable inventory before QUICKSTOCK?

 

‘So before QUICKSTOCK we kinda did online orders, emails to account reps and stuff like that. We had to manually go and count the stock that we had on the floor.  That would include going out with an Excel list and manually counting every grinding disc and drill bit we had and making sure it was enough for us for the next couple of weeks. We'd do this regularly, around about once a month, which was a horribly time-consuming process.’ 

Why did you decide to use QUICKSTOCK?

 

‘What led us to exploring our options with QUICKSTOCK was the amount of time that was chewed up with the manual count. As well as if there was a miscount or mis-stock the amount of time that the guys wasted with not having the consumables they needed on the floor at the right time.

It was the convenience of it [QUICKSTOCK]. Just having a cabinet of product which we didn't own. It was not paid for until we used it. We saw the value because we're a small team, and to have someone spending their day or part of their week ordering product, and to keep the boys moving, we saw that as hugely convenient. 

After our conversation with Eddie and Liam they gave us the pros to the QUICKSTOCK system and it was just sort of a simple solution and seemed simple enough. So we gave the QUICKSTOCK solution a go and the big reason for it was we didn't have to allocate someone's time, take them off building a boat, fitting out a boat, my time from sales or developing the business. And the product's just there, in the cupboard. It's great.’

How does the QUICKSTOCK system work with your operations?

 

‘The way we use QUICKSTOCK is we have the blue cupboard out in our workshop available for the guys to access at any time. If they run out of cutting discs, they can scoot over to the cabinet and grab a box and stick them on the rack.

We don't keep it locked. We let the guys grab what they need to and we have a sign-out sheet on it so we can manage what is being used. And then get straight back at it!’

Have you experienced any hurdles with the QUICKSTOCK system?

 

‘The only problem we had getting into QUICKSTOCK was just organising our stock levels with Liam. We went backwards and forwards a little bit and felt out what our monthly consumption rate was. We probably didn't have a good enough list of what we needed, and once we had that sorted there's been no issues since.’

Would you say QUICKSTOCK has improved your business?

 

‘QUICKSTOCK's improved our business in a way that we don't have any downtime, people trying to find, you know, glues. “Oh we're out of that, we're out of this.”

It's definitely improved the efficiency on the floor. The guys have got product when they need it. And yeah, we'd definitely recommend it to any business, small business that production is key.

Something we really love is when the replenisher comes through and leaves us 3 packs of bikkies for the guys in the smoko room. They definitely disappear pretty quick.’