ComActivity have partnered with iconic Australian timber products manufacturer, Porta, on a digital transformation project to deliver visibility, efficiency and flexibility.

About the client

Porta is a leading Australian supplier and manufacturer of high-quality timber products. Established over 90 years ago, the company specializes in a wide range of timber solutions for both interior and exterior applications. Porta’s product line includes decorative timber mouldings, handrails, dowels, wall linings, decking, and cladding. They cater to various sectors, including home improvement, building, trade, and commercial markets.

They are an innovative company, which is always seeking to offer new ways to do business with their customers, and respond to market requirements, at pace.

The challenge – Disparate, aging, on-premise systems

Porta had been relying for many years on legacy specialty-timber, on-premise solutions, which had served the business well over the years. However the systems had become outdated, unsupported and the disparate systems could not be relied on. Integration between systems was challenging, so visibility, decision-making and control was compromised, and the systems required round-the-clock monitoring as well as maintenance and management of aging infrastructure.

Con Anagnostopoulos, Head of Business Consulting at ComActivity, comments, “Porta has multiple parts to their business – from processing the raw timber, through to custom manufacturing, production and distribution, so they really needed a clear line of sight across the business’s mills, factories and warehouses.”

The solution – One complete cloud solution that serves the business

Porta wanted to upgrade to a new cloud-based solution which would cater for the unique requirements of timber production, deliver transparency and control, and free up the IT team to focus on adapting easily to innovative business strategy.

Johann Lazarus, Head of ICT at Porta, has a vision for how technology can support the business:

“Although timber manufacturing and production doesn’t change dramatically, the way we do business with customers does – and we wanted a solution that would enable flexibility – not be a road-block”

Porta decided that Infor’s CloudSuite solution based around core Infor M3 Cloud Edition would support the unique requirements of a timber business and they partnered with ComActivity to implement the solution, due to their experience with the Infor solution, as well as overall business understanding.

In terms of working with ComActivity, Johann continues:

“This was one of the biggest internal projects our business has ever undertaken, and right from the start, ComActivity put us at ease – they were incredibly professional. They are very aligned with best-practice and gave us honest feedback on that. The ComActivity consultants were very knowledgeable, and able to give us advice on our entire technology landscape, and how best to get platforms working together.”

He continues “We felt free to ask any questions we wanted, and they were very approachable when issues needed to be escalated. They were also able to allocate additional resources to assist us which was a great help. Then the care given by the ComActivity team after the system went live was phenomenal.”

Con Anagnostopoulos, Head of Business Consulting at ComActivity “This was a real partnership. We worked closely with them to enhance processes in various aspects of the business, including production, warehousing, purchasing, and finance. It was a real privilege to be entrusted by the Porta team to guide them through this project.”

Peace-of-mind and flexibility

The benefits of the solution for Porta include:

• A single solution that serves the business
• Visibility and control for better business operations and decision making
• Flexibility and adaptability to pursue innovative business strategies
• Risk mitigation and disaster recovery in a secure cloud environment
• Scalability for peak processing and that supports growth
• Reduction of costly, risky and time-consuming maintenance of on-premise infrastructure
• Ease of integration with other cloud technologies
• IT freed up to support business goals

Con describes the results:

“Now Porta has a unified solution featuring the best business processes for timber, providing complete transparency from the moment the timber arrives at the sawmill, through various timber processes and customizations, to picking, packing, and shipping to customers.”