Who are Alpine Nurseries?
Alpine Nurseries is one of Australia’s largest wholesale nurseries that has been in business for more than 40 years. Alpine operates from 4 locations; Sydney suburbs Dural, Arcadia and Annangrove, and Alstonville in the Northern Rivers region of NSW. Alpine is focused on trade customers, including landscape contractors and designers, local Councils, property developers, garden centres and Government agencies.
Allotrac and Alpine
Alpine Nurseries approached Allotrac in 2017 seeking an integrated transport solution. The solution was to provide Alpine's drivers with a paperless workflow that enabled visibility for both Alpine's employees and clients.
At the start of 2022, we had the opportunity to capture the delivery process at Alpine Nurseries' Dural location. Our focus was to showcase a single point of entry in Growscope to the final delivery at our headquarters in Wollongong.
The journey kicks off amidst the breathtaking grounds of Dural where the sales order has been received from Growscope in Allotrac. The allocator reviews the order before assigning the load for delivery in Allotrac. The driver initiates the workflow by completing the pre-start checklist via the driver’s application.
Proceeding to the staging area, the driver loads the plants that have been picked in order for delivery. The driver confirms the quantity before the journey unfolds as we head toward the new Allotrac headquarters in Wollongong.
Upon arrival, the driver confirms the items that need to be unloaded and captures images of the plants as part of their delivery process. The information is instantly available in Allotrac, facilitating a streamlined administrative process for Alpine Nurseries.
For a visual walkthrough of this process, you can watch the video here.
Integration with Growscope
Alpine Nurseries exemplifies a hybrid approach that combines a best-of-breed approach to software. At its core, the solution utilises Growscope’s horticultural software that is seamlessly integrated with Allotrac. The result is a one-stop shop with a seamless integration of information between different departments from a single point of entry to invoice.
Sales orders are passed from Growscope’s ERP to Allotrac in real time with no double entry of data or paperwork required. Updates and changes to the sales order are processed via the API removing the effort and errors in updating the orders before delivery. Alpine’s operations team can then build the runs for delivery the following day. Their pickers will collate the orders and stage the stock in the loading bays to be preloaded the afternoon before delivery.
This fully integrated solution provides sales and operations visibility of the sales order and transport operation. The Alpine Nurseries sales team can automatically notify their clients of the status of each delivery and provide them with automated proof of deliveries. The result has been an increase in customer satisfaction since their users can count on the reliability and accuracy of the data.
"Both sales and operations have real-time visibility into the transport operation, enabling them to track sales orders for customers..."
Ryan Welsh, Operations Manager