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The client

Sealey

Founded in 1978, Sealey is a leading brand of professional tool and workshop equipment. They currently have over 10,000 different product lines including hand tools, power tools and equipment for servicing vehicles. Based in East Anglia, Sealey ship tools nationally and internationally to over 20 countries.  

The challenge

Increased paperwork and administration caused by Brexit

Following Brexit, importing goods into Northern Ireland became significantly more complex due to the increased paperwork required. For businesses moving goods in or out of Northern Ireland, the UK Government provides the Trader Support Service (TSS) to guide them through the new processes introduced by the Northern Ireland Protocol.

Sealey needed to submit declarations to the UK Government's TSS via its website. For every trailer of goods they ship across the Irish Sea—almost on a daily basis—they are required to make a declaration. Each trailer typically contains multiple consignments, with each consignment destined for a different customer in Northern Ireland.

A single consignment often consists of numerous tool and workshop equipment items. On average, each trailer or declaration has over 200 different goods lines, meaning Sealey staff had to manually input 200 lines of data into the TSS website every day, resulting in a time-consuming and error-prone process.

The solution

A digital solution to streamline the declaration process

To alleviate the burden of manual data entry, Sealey was already producing a report from their internal stock and ordering system in a spreadsheet format, which staff would use to manually enter data into the TSS website. However, Sealey became aware that the TSS offered an API for automated submission of declaration data and approached PDMS to integrate their system with the TSS.

PDMS developed the bespoke TraderTap system that takes Sealey's data in CSV format, parses and validates it into normalised tables for the three levels of data: Declaration, Consignments, and Goods. The system then processes the data, sending it to the TSS API in the correct order, item by item. It now takes less than one minute to submit a reasonably big file to the TSS website.

Additionally, PDMS implemented a solution for the limitation of 99 goods items per consignment. As Sealey frequently handles consignments exceeding this limit, the system automatically splits large consignments into smaller ones to meet this restriction.

Service

TraderTap
An image of an engineer using a tool with sparks flying off
An image of a person using an iPad with icons in hexagons and vans out of focus in the background

The project

Seamless integration with the TSS service

There are three types of records required by the TSS:

  • ENS - Entry Summary Declaration
  • SFD - Simplified Frontier Declaration
  • SDI - Supplementary Declaration 

The initial upload creates a draft ENS which they can submit via our system.  This generates a SFD more or less immediately by TSS, and when a shipment of goods arrives in Northern Ireland, a draft SDI is created. PDMS’ solution allows for any draft SDI records to be updated and resent. 

After the initial submission of the ENS record, our system can check the TSS for updates. For example, it is possible to check if an SFD or Supplementary Declaration record has been created yet and retrieve information about the records including their new ID. 

The benefits

The TraderTap solution provided many enhancements to Sealey's operations, including delivering huge time savings and freeing up valuable members of staff. Key benefits include:

Time efficiencies

Two members of staff saved a minimum of three hours daily, previously spent manually entering ENS data. This time-saving allowed them to focus on their core responsibilities.

Improved processes

Sealey staff previously grouped consignments by customer, with a single ENS covering multiple invoices. The new system allows for the creation of one ENS per invoice, streamlining the process further.

Optimised resource allocation

The task of managing SDI entries, which previously required the equivalent of three full-time staff, now only takes one person about one hour per day.

Client testimonial

“Our workload for the Supplementary Declarations has been reduced from the equivalent of three people working full time to an hour a day of one person, which is amazing. And similarly, the ENS level has saved the guys each easily three hours a day. You could therefore probably equate the API to the full-time work of four people!”

Tim Thompson Chief Commercial Officer, Sealey

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