Mistik Management — Saskatchewan
Background
Mistik Management was established in 1990 at Meadow Lake, Northern
Saskatchewan. It directs and tracks the flow of wood from both crown and private
forests to two wood processing operations: a pulp mill owned by Millar Western
and the province of Saskatchewan, and a sawmill owned by NorSask Forest
Products.
Meadow Lake Tribal Council, a First Nations organization, is the sole
shareholder of NorSask, and together with Millar Western, they jointly own
Mistik Management. Mistik Management is heavily involved in forestry research
and ecological forestry. In order to benefit the local community, great numbers
of small local contractors are used in lumber harvesting, preparation, and
transportation activities.
Challenge
The company decided to replace its existing IBM AS/400 system. While this
system is functional, it has proven to be inflexible. Workarounds, which have
been developed to cope with business process changes, are costly and involve
awkward data entry/retrieval. The database has in general become confusing and
difficult to maintain.
The new system is expected to allow complex business rule formation (e.g.
truck weight limits varying by weather) and facilitate the management of
existing business processes and tracking methods. The new system is required to
provide financial integration with the existing system, and feature sufficient
flexibility to track and report on all activities relating to vendors (including
taxes, WCB, etc.). The system’s accurate inventory tracking (including the
ability to create needed methods as new business processes are implemented) is
of vital importance
Solution
The LIMS user-friendly graphical interface integrates with the existing
Windows operating systems. Data entry and retrieval (in forms, reports, or
exported to MS Office applications) is seamless and easy. New business rules can
be incorporated and integrated as novel approaches are used, or new systems
tested. LIMS manages its database effectively and efficiently, without the need
for external process workarounds.
Business rules can be adapted. Table driven system allows constants and
proportions to be adjusted as needed. Unforeseen changes can be integrated as
the needs arise. The LIMS integration does not demand changes to the existing
business processes, and provides flexibility to enable new business systems such
as portable milling equipment.
All financial transactions are generated and applied to the appropriate
accounts in the financial system. Complex payment adjustments arising from
numerous sources are easily managed and automatically applied. Reports are
available as needed. After reconciliation with accounting system, final reports
are created for auditing record purposes. LIMS is adaptable, for example, the
new "stacked scaling" system (where a bush scale is combined with length
measurements) can be easily introduced to the system.
Project
Project's 5 basic phases including: assessment, prototyping, development of
custom modules, implementation, and final adjustment were completed in less than
6 months.
Results
3LOG's LIMS will generate cost information by department, for the four
Mistik's departments of administration, planning, renewal and operations. It
will also allow the processing and collection of other costs all tied to the
specific FMA, Fur Block, Area and Block and to be charged to the correct
department.
LIMS will facilitate the company's electronic transfer or manual input and
editing of weigh and bush scaled transactions with the addition of the sub-bock,
population and condition for the weigh slip record, and the sub-block and
condition for the scale sheet record.
LIMS System will simply increase bush inventory for each scale sheet and
decreases it for each weigh slip. That will allow bush inventory, for each Fur
Block, Area, Block and product to have an opening, decreasing, increasing and
closing balance. LIMS can allow grouping, reporting, and G/L distribution for
major product codes of both softwood and hardwood.
Benefits
Advanced cost allocation capabilities provide Mistik Management with a
valuable managerial tool. For example, Lumber product costs can be configured to
include road usage, silviculture materials, and training hours. These costs can
be applied on a flat-fee or distributed basis.
The previous system had created independent flat files for summary reports
(in the interest of report generation speed). The LIMS statement engine is a
vast improvement in its real-time operation. Data integrity problems are
avoided, and timely information is available on a continual basis.
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