CRAIG Smith-Gander was a regular visitor to the Curtin University library in the early 1990s while completing his masters of commerce, armed with a 20-megabyte hard-disk drive laptop.
CRAIG Smith-Gander was a regular visitor to the Curtin University library in the early 1990s while completing his masters of commerce, armed with a 20-megabyte hard-disk drive laptop.
The corporate finance figure, nicknamed 'Goose', can't recall the make of the computer, but does remember students ogling his rather expensive study tool.
"People were looking at me and saying, 'what is that, where did you get that from?" Mr Smith-Gander said.
More than a decade later, 'Goose' would attract similar stares when he used the laptop at his new business venture, the Malaga-based crane and truck hire company Kwik. But this time, the audience was wary, rather than impressed.
Having become jaded with corporate finance, Mr Smith-Gander bought into the crane and trucking business in 2005 that had started out as a Perth trucking company in the late 1980s. Its principals had decided to sell, but were content to stay on for a transition period.
The business had developed a sophisticated fleet-management system to control its transport and crane hire divisions. Unlike tower cranes that stay at the one project for long periods of time, Kwik's smaller array of cranes and fleet of trucks constantly move around, which creates a hectic booking system environment.
"It was a really well thought-out system. In fact it was flawless, but it was on paper," Mr Smith-Gander said.
"Almost unwittingly they designed a system which was perfect to be translated into a modern computer operating system."
The system was exposed to error, according to Mr Smith-Gander, because the process involved moving data from the large paper sheets to an "ancient computer system" that didn't allow users to track what was going on until all data was entered and printed out. To compensate, the business had strict but time-consuming checks to ensure accuracy.
"As the business grew, it got to the ludicrous stage where you were turning pieces of paper over and drawing lines on the back to do more jobs. It was evident to me right from the start it needed to be electronic," he said.
Mr Smith-Gander speaks highly of the former Kwik principals, but recalls the "clash of universes" that occurred when he wanted to overhaul the systems that, in his opinion, would otherwise limit the growth of the business. But by showing the principals how the systems were being transferred into a new operating system - and not simply discarded - the upgrades occurred.
Getting rid of two-way radios and paper systems by installing GPS and data terminals into the fleet is the next step of the process.
Mr Smith-Gander said keeping key people on board was of huge importance to companies undergoing a change in ownership.
He refers to general manager Peter Robinson as the "absolute heart and soul" of the business and operations manager Ryan Caporn as having a knowledge of cranes that is unsurpassed in Perth; both worked at Kwik before the changeover.
"I remember sitting next to Peter when I was first there struggling to put one job down on a piece of paper. I looked at him and he's on the telephone taking an order from a customer and the guy next to him is talking to someone on the two-way radio and the guy behind him is doing a transport job," Mr Smith-Gander said.
"He finishes his conversation, puts the telephone down, turns to the guy next to him and says, 'no, send mobile 48 not 46 because he's in Dianella and the job is in Stirling and the other bloke has to go to Welshpool next'. Then he turns round to the guy on the trucking desk and says, 'you can't send Gerry because his tray is only 7.2 metres, the load is 7.5 metres and curfew starts in 15 minutes'.
"I thought, 'this is a bloke I need to keep'."
