Case Study
Australian Terminal Operations Management (ATOM)
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Formed in 2015, ATOM specialises in managing all aspects of terminal activities for their customers ranging from the storage and handling of bulk liquid fuels to maintenance and engineering services.
With a head office in Melbourne, Australia ATOM currently operates and maintains circa 20 bulk fuel terminals across Australia.
ATOM’s priorities are simple. To deliver safe, reliable, and effective terminal operations, maintenance and engineering services for their customers wherever they operate.
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Terminal Operations
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Storage and handling of hydrocarbons
Unloading or loading of road/rail transportation
Pipeline receipt at terminals fed from refineries
Tankship discharges at seaborne locations
Product quality management in accordance with customer requirements
Asset management and engineering project delivery
Effective day to day HSSE management and control of work processes
Fuel Quality Assurance (including monitoring & testing)
Compliance management including for a range of licences such as, major hazard facilities environmental and dangerous goods
Risk management and verification processes
Generating and demonstrating value for our customer and meeting key performance indicators (KPIs)
Objective
ATOM engaged Pivot2 Solutions in October 2020, to help create a simpler, more intuitive process using Oracle Netsuite Planning and Budgeting platform along with the core ERP. With key stakeholders and decision makers based throughout Australia, working in disparate and multiple excel workbooks was not sustainable or efficient. With significant interest in scaling the business up, pressure to have robust planning and reporting systems in place had been mounting.
Laying the foundations for success at the beginning of the implementation helped to give guide rails and keep focus through the project. The focus was to:
Reduce disparate excel workbooks
Ensure simple, more intuitive, planning and budgeting solutions
Repeatable, scalable, robust solutions that can be trusted and relied on
Focus on business value add
Create an experience for users so planning and reporting feels ‘less of a chore’
Reduce effort and time to meet month end deadlines
Improve turnaround in delivery of reporting packs to stakeholders
Increase automation, reduce excel
Improve quality of outputs and reduce human errors
Increase involvement and consistency across all areas of the business
Benefit to Client
Rolling forecast methodology has shortened process to now take approx. 2 weeks for a quarterly forecast cycle.
Improved planning and operational alignment.
Developed more accurate workforce planning and increasing forecast accuracy.
Leveraging the system for management reporting and variance analysis has allowed a full revamp of the month end process.
Centralised capture of data facilitates the consolidation process, increasing trust and reliance on the data.
Operational teams are using the tools to perform their planning, thus reducing the reliance of external spreadsheets and in turn limits the possibilities for errors.
Easy to track the various budget revisions through the use of the versioning capabilities in the tool.
Analysis and insight are easier. The query tools mean real time analysis thereby creating space for the value add.
Outcome
80 - 90% of the forecast is now completed using SmartView.
No manual consolidation required for month end or the planning cycles.
More accurate and reliable data as single source of truth is secure and accessible by everyone in the one system.
Increased engagement for stakeholders in the business.
Key business stakeholders have welcomed the increased transparency via the reporting packs now provided.
Robust reporting platform that allows for reports to be automatically generated and sent to the respective stakeholders.
“The biggest win ATOM have gained from the NetSuite planning and budgeting implementation is having a single source of truth for all our reporting and analysis needs. The finance team are now working more efficiently and have more space for value-add work. The speed, accuracy and reliability of our reporting has bolstered the reputation of our finance team and they get to focus on commercial strategic matters.
Moving to a dynamic, real-time forecasting process has allowed the business to maintain a running forecast and lays a great foundation for a faster, more effective quarterly reforecasting process. The business is more engaged with their results and key stakeholders are getting more relevant information, faster.
We have decommissioned over 50 different excel workbooks and the finance and operations teams are welcoming the new tools and process. The quality of work has improved tremendously and the time to prepare our quarterly forecasting cycle has reduced by 25%.
We have settled into great ways of working with the Pivot2 team and see them as a strategic business partner. We’d highly recommend starting off with the must haves in the initial phase of the project and then scale the solution as you gain confidence and knowledge in new processes and as you grow.”
