Complex sales orders,
75% faster to process
How Fletcher Building automated complex, non-standard customer orders across Laminex and Winstone Wallboards — reducing manual entry, accelerating confirmations and connecting modern document intelligence with established ERP systems.
“I would recommend it to others. And my businesses would recommend it to others because of the benefits that we’ve seen. It works.”
Jamie Thomson
Head of IT, Laminex New Zealand, Comfortech and Winstone Wallboards
75%
Average reduction in order-entry time
30 mins → 90 secs
Order confirmation time at Laminex
2 FTE
Equivalent team capacity released
the need
Automate the orders standard systems couldn’t handle
Fletcher Building supplies materials to thousands of construction sites across New Zealand. While simple, high-volume orders could already move through automated channels, many direct-to-site orders arrived with complex product, delivery and handling requirements.
These non-standard orders were sent by email in spreadsheets, PDFs and numerous customer-specific layouts. Staff had to interpret each request and manually enter the details into established accounting and management systems.
The process was slow, difficult to scale and exposed the business to errors that could delay deliveries and disrupt work on site.
the CHALLENGE
Special orders created manual work, and delivery risk
Direct-to-site construction orders often included detailed instructions that did not fit a standard digital order format.
A builder might require products to be stacked in a precise sequence, delivered to a specific area of the site, or carried into individual rooms. Different branches of the same merchant also used different forms and layouts.
These details mattered. If information was entered incorrectly or too slowly, deliveries could be delayed and construction activity could be brought to a standstill.
VARIABLE FORMATS
Orders arrived as emails, spreadsheets and documents in dozens of layouts
COMPLEX INSTRUCTIONS
Product stacking, site delivery and room-specific requirements needed accurate capture
MANUAL ENTRY
Customer service teams interpreted and rekeyed every non-standard order
LEGACY SYSTEMS
Existing office software was not designed to connect easily with modern data-capture tools
the APPROACH
A flexible document-intelligence bridge to the ERP
Rather than replacing existing systems or investing in a heavyweight enterprise platform, Fletcher Building connected Xtracta to its current sales-order workflow.
Xtracta operates behind the scenes, capturing complex order information and returning verified, structured data to the existing ERP environment.
Receive the order
Customers continue to email purchase orders and instructions in the formats they already use.
Send to Xtracta
The order email and attachments are automatically passed to Xtracta for processing.
Read and structure
Xtracta identifies the relevant data, including customer, product, quantity and detailed delivery requirements.
Learn customer formats
The system is fine-tuned for different merchant and branch layouts, including variations across ITM and Mitre 10 order forms.
Validate the data
Captured information is checked and remains available for review where required.
Route to the ERP
Where the order achieves a complete match with no errors, the verified data flows through the integration layer into the ERP for normal processing.
IN THE CLIENT’S WORDS
“With our direct-to-site service, a builder might need a specific sequence of products stacked a certain way or carried into a bathroom. Those highly specific requests simply don’t lend themselves to a standard digital order type.”
Jamie Thomson
Head of IT, Laminex New Zealand, Comfortech and Winstone Wallboards
the outcome
Faster orders, greater capacity and better site certainty
Fletcher Building reduced the time required to process complex orders while retaining the accuracy and control needed for highly specific construction deliveries.
The result is a faster, more scalable customer-order workflow that works with existing systems and does not require customers to change how they submit their orders.
75% faster order entry
Average order-entry time at Winstone Wallboards fell from eight minutes to two minutes.
Near real-time confirmations
At Laminex, customer order-confirmation time dropped from 30 minutes to approximately 90 seconds.
Two FTE of capacity released
Automation reduced the manual workload by the equivalent of two full-time roles, allowing staff to focus on customer queries, credits and higher-value work.
A blueprint for wider automation
The implementation across Winstone Wallboards and Laminex has created a repeatable model for other Fletcher Building business units: modern document automation without replacing trusted systems or taking on an enterprise-sized platform and price tag.
“I would recommend it to others. And my businesses would recommend it to others because of the benefits that we’ve seen. It works.”
