PalletXpress, a newly formed Mullingar-based distribution co-op, is to roll out Microsoft’s mid-range enterprise ERP system, Navision, to run its logistics operations, siliconrepublic.com has learned.
Microsoft business partner ProStrategy was awarded the €200k-plus contract to implement the system and is currently configuring the software at its Nangor Road headquarters in Dublin. The system is due to go live in June.
The idea behind PalletXpress, a partnership between two-dozen well-known haulage firms around the country, is to provide a low-cost centralised road freight distribution service from a national hub in Mullingar. Each of the haulage firms involved delivers goods from regional locations overnight to the Midlands town for onward delivery by other members of the co-op. Tommy Carr, owner of Carr International Transport and former manager of the Dublin Senior GAA football team, is the managing director of PalletXpress.
The Navision software will be used to reassign pallets to various members according to destination. There will be a web connection from every member depot to the central Navision system, allowing each member to create, allocate them and track consignments.
Noel Shannon, managing director of ProStrategy, was confident that the contract would lead to others within the distribution sector, which is seen as an important target market for Navision. “We would hope that this contract would give us an opportunity to offer all the members an integration from this into their own [ERP] system or maybe replace their own system with Navision,” he said.
PalletXpress is the company’s sixth Navision customer in the transport and distribution business.
A Microsoft business partner for both Navision and the forthcoming Microsoft CRM application, due to be launched in Ireland on 20 April, ProStrategy is also the main Irish partner for Cognos, the business intelligence software and hosts the only certified Cognos training centre in Ireland. It is, additionally, the sole Irish distributor for Sybiz accounting software.
ProStrategy was formed in 2000 with the merger of two well known IT services firms, EPS and KSM. It employs 15 staff, including three within its new Navision office in Belfast docklands, and a newly hired senior sales executive based in the City of London who will manage ProStrategy’s Cognos customer base there.
By Brian Skelly
