National Hardwood Magazine - September 2019

By Terry Miller Omaha,

By Terry Miller Omaha, NE—DMSi Software has spent more than 40 years designing business software for the lumber and building materials industry. They are well-known for their Agility ERP, an end-to-end system developed specifically for the needs of businesses that buy, sell, and process lumber. The company’s newest offering, TallyExpress, is another solution tailor-made for the Hardwood industry. TallyExpress allows users to capture end tallies from an Android smartphone. It uses a mix of object-recognition technology and machine learning to measure each board in a bundle. Users simply take a picture, review the results, and everything uploads to HARDWOOD END TALLY PROCESS TRANSFORMING WITH NEW TALLYEXPRESS APP the cloud. Henry German, part of DMSi’s family ownership group, leads the TallyExpress product. German explained, “We immediately recognized this was a technology breakthrough for the industry, we wanted to be involved in bringing this to the market because we believe it is the right solution for our customers’ futures.” Andy Nuffer, a veteran of the Hardwood industry, heads up business development for TallyExpress. “At every stop in my career, getting accurate tallies is key to the bottom line. TallyExpress is quick, it’s accurate, and it fits in your pocket. In my opinion, it can help everyone in this industry.” According to DMSi, TallyExpress combines, accuracy, speed, ease of use and affordability – all on the most widely-used device available: a smartphone. Skeptics may hear this description and think the product sounds too good to be true. To examine these claims, we reviewed several major Hardwood businesses currently using TallyExpress in their operations to determine if the app delivers on its promises. (Right) A Brownlee Lumber Company employee reviews results in the app. 28 SEPTEMBER 2019 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE

█ Accuracy Accuracy is a big concern for any Hardwood company. Most TallyExpress customers went through extensive testing before fully implementing the app. “The company who put our accuracy through the most rigorous test was Northwest Hardwoods,” said German. During their trial, Northwest Hardwoods tested over 100 bundles and compared TallyExpress with their hand and machine tally methods. They followed this initial test with a three-month pilot where they tallied over 5,000 bundles and performed weekly spot checks by tallying each board with a tape measure and comparing it to TallyExpress. “Overall we were 99.5% accurate to these tape measure tallies, some sites were seeing 99.8 to 99.9%,” recalls a company representative from Northwest Hardwoods. “At that point, we were confident this app was going to work.” Richard Buchanan of Granite Hardwoods in Granite Falls, NC also did extensive testing before implementing Tally- Express at his business. “To verify the accuracy, we tested around 32,000 feet from a kiln. TallyExpress was within 16 feet of our tally and it took us about 1/3 the time as it would have manually.” “One thing that stood out to us during testing was how good TallyExpress is at detecting splits or two boards that are really flush,” said a representative from Allegheny Wood Products of Petersburg, WV. “One pack in particular had a board with a really wide vertical split plus another area where two boards were perfectly flush together. It was even difficult for the naked eye to determine if the flush boards were one or two. TallyExpress picked up both of them correctly. That was pretty impressive.” Henry German and Andy Nuffer lead the TallyExpress initiative for DMSi Software. “WE IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZED THIS WAS A TECHNOLOGY BREAK-THROUGH FOR THE INDUSTRY,WE WANTED TO BE INVOLVED IN BRINGING THIS TO THE MARKET BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IT IS THE RIGHT SOLUTION FOR OUR CUSTOMERS’ FUTURES.” –HENRY GERMAN, PART OF THE DMSi’S FAMILY OWNERSHIP GROUP A Northwest Hardwood employee tallies a bundle from his phone. Brownlee Lumber Company was one of the first to implement the TallyExpress app. █ Consistency In addition to accuracy, businesses want to make sure TallyExpress delivers reliable, consistent results over time. Tim Brownlee of Brownlee Lumber Co. described their experience. “We have been live for almost a year now and the results are consistently accurate with where I would expect them to be. We only need to edit one or two boards on 150-200-piece bundles. In our opinion, just taking the human error element out of the process improves the consistency and accuracy of our tally.” Using photo records also addresses consistency issues with order fulfillment. Businesses can provide their customers with photos and tallies of the specific bundle a customer Please turn to page 54 SEPTEMBER 2019 n NATIONAL HARDWOOD MAGAZINE 29