The implementation of Greentree a year ago, has achieved the original goal of positioning Valley Longwall International for growth through acquisition. Greentree continues to support the forward momentum of that growth as the organisation taps into the potential of China.

The business situation

Pin-point accurate job costing, the ability to handle complex multi-leveled jobs and improve inventory management have all been achieved. Valley Longwall wanted a sound business base upon which the business could pursue reasonably aggressive growth and that’s now in full swing. The return on the original investment in Greentree is reverberating throughout the expanding group of companies.

Group reporting time plummets

Jan Grove, Financial Controller, says reporting has changed dramatically and Valley Longwall worked closely with the Greentree partner to develop a cost accrual process to make reporting faster and more accurate. The process enables the automatic capture, analysis, allocation and reporting of costs in conjunction with Excel integration. Jan is enthusiastic about the results which effectively dropped the amount of time involved by more than half. The Board of Directors now get timely, as opposed to historical, group operating performance information. This is invaluable for strategic planning and decision making.

Month-end close-off drops from 10 working days to 3 working days Greentree’s integrated environment has shaved an enviable 6-7 days off the time between month-end and close-off. This is because integration has done away with multiple disparate systems and the 2-3 sets of mostly differing data. Jan says staff no longer face month-end with trepidation and he’s stunned by the positive impact Greentree has had on staff morale. He’s amazed at how the removal of time pressures has positively impacted upon organisational culture. This has translated into significant reductions in staff training and other staff related costs with significant productivity improvements.

Set-up of plant jobs optimises asset usage

In an industry where jobs can run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, down-time simply isn’t an option. It’s therefore imperative that plant assets such as drilling rigs are optimally utilised since this has implications for maintenance scheduling and profitability.

Recently, the plant job functionality within the Job Cost module was developed to ensure the accurate allocation, tracking and capture of all costs associated with rig usage. Jan says this has produced some solid early results and over the longer term will; maximise capacity, avoid over-capitalisation and reduce maintenance costs by better enabling of preventative maintenance scheduling.

Omnipresent access

Valley Longwall’s mobile workforce requires system access from anywhere which previously, wasn’t possible since each company within the group was using a different system. Now, staff can walk into any Valley Longwall company in any country and get instant access to Greentree via the internet. This ensures they can work optimally from anywhere.

Deep business understanding helps achieve goals faster

Jan states that the Greentree Partner “made sure they learned our business, knew our people and understood our goals.” He’s certain that this translated into the best utilisation of available resources and the quickest path to achieving the stated business goals.

“The Greentree Partner knows Greentree and our business insideout so we don’t need to waste time explaining what we’re trying to achieve over and over again, such as setup of the Plants which was done in less than a day.”

Acquisition of complementary mining operations across multiple countries ensures that Valley Longwall is well placed to offer customers the complete end-to-end mining solution. Greentree helps leverage and coordinate the collective efforts of all companies within the group.