Freo Group – Purchasing Made Easy
Freo Group – Purchasing Made Easy
Executive Summary
Freo Group is Australia’s largest crane hire and logistics management company. It provides these services to the mining and resources, civil construction and renewable energy sectors. Freo Group deploy highly skilled employees and specialist machinery to some of Australia’s leading ‘Blue Chip’ clients, including BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Woodside, Fortescue Metals Group, BP, Chevron, Apache Corporation, Newcrest Mining Limited, AngloGold Ashanti, Anglo American, Wesfarmers, Tronox, Karara Mining.
The Freo Group workforce operates over wide geographical area and often in remote locations without network coverage. A large part of the work involves the structured and accurate purchasing of goods and services and the timely approval and payment of such purchases. Freo are constantly seeking ways to make their business more efficient through the use of technology and innovation and this includes looking for a way to automate their Purchase Order and Invoice Approvals processes. Currently there is no easily accessible way for managers to locate and approve important workflows. Managers have to spend valuable time logging in on a desktop, and spend more time locating crucial purchase orders and invoices. This is time consuming and inconvenient and in turn leads to delays and escalations.
As a leading-edge service provider, Freo Group has a vision of working toward a fully electronic and paper free outcome across its internal and external workforce. Freo Group are also driving a safer, more engaged world class workforce, providing real time data to people in the field so they can make informed decisions.
In October 2018, the Addax Business Solutions team introduced TOKN to Freo Group. Freo Group engaged TOKN to help fulfill its requirement for device agnostic enhanced digital capability, to better manage its approvals processes and accelerate efficiencies for the business.
In partnership with Addax Business Solutions, TOKN and Freo Group delivered enterprise mobile applications for the real-time approval of purchase orders and invoices, including the administrative framework with which to manage the apps.
“TOKN provides a highly customisable system which facilitates the movement of information through all our branches of business. This removes many costly and time-consuming limitations often incurred by vast geographical differences which Freo Group faces operating depots across the country.”
Tony Durey
Sector Innovation Officer, Freo Group
Solution: The TOKN Enterprise cloud platform provided the required digital capability. This included:
- Providing digital mobile apps using the TOKN App templates;
- Connecting to and moving data between Freo Group systems using TOKN Connect;
- Simplifying the remote management of users, devices and apps using the TOKN Control.
“TOKN is a mobility solution with a focus on being a simple framework that allows minimally trained staff members (with the right permissions) to create a digital apps that can pull data out and push data to various underlying corporate systems”
Digital apps: TOKN App Templates were used to deliver intuitive enterprise apps. All apps work offline, and on any device type (including Apple, Android and Microsoft for both mobile and desktop deployments). Enabling users to use their own devices
| Applications | Function | Team |
| Purchase Order Approvals App | Purchase order approvals app, to allow managers to approve and reject all purchase order line item types. Manage multi- level approvals Including digital push messaging alerts to managers. | TOKN/Freo Group/Addax |
| Invoice Approvals App | Invoice approvals app, to allow managers to approve and reject all invoice line item types. Manage multi- level approvals in MYOB Greentree. Including digital push messaging alerts to managers. | TOKN/Freo Group/Addax |
Integration: The TOKN Connect tool was used to enable the connection to multiple integration points.
| Systems | Connection | Team |
| TOKN /MYOB | TOKN connect, was used to integrate the TOKN Mobile client with MYOB using the rest API. | TOKN/Addax |
Outcomes
- Drive increased productivity and engagement in the business. Freo Group estimates a 30% increase in productivity improvement through a more accessible approvals process and the removal of manual paper-based processes, double entry, and expedited the billing cycle
- removing time consuming manual process and avoiding manual emails .
- Enhanced the digital capability and increased use of mobility with simple frameworks.
- Increased staff engagement by delivering information and updates directly to the individual in remote locations.
- Offline capability has led to an improved user experience and less interruption to the business.
- Low implementation, installation or hardware expenses. Adopting a Cloud based Solution Freo Group had no installation and application hosting expenses and no on-site support
TOKN systems integration and development team is Perth Based, together with integration partner Addax Business solutions team has supported all integration with the Freo GROUP systems.
To find out more about how TOKN can benefit your business, get in contact below!