Customer Profile

J.F. Electric
Edwardsville, Illinois

Industry

Commercial electrical contracting

Product

PowerTrack Mobile Workforce Solution for Construction

The Challenge

J.F. Electric is a large electrical contractor, based in Illinois, that serves commercial, industrial, communications and utility customers. The company manages multiple concurrent projects ranging in duration from one day to several years. Some jobs require one or two electricians, and others need more than 50 electricians. Each job requires J.F. Electric’s warehouse personnel to track and manage parts, consumables and equipment related to that job.

In 2005, J.F. Electric needed to replace its accounting system and at the same time wanted to streamline its inventory process. The company desired to track job costs more accurately so it could refine its estimating process. It also wanted to identify and avoid potential supply bottlenecks and achieve greater economy in purchasing.

The Solution

The company evaluated many accounting packages that offered partial support for barcode inventory management or remote data collection. Evaluators discovered a vacuum of packages targeted toward mid-market companies like J.F. Electric. Most of the accounting systems the company looked at were oriented to smaller companies with less ambitious information technology requirements. After significant research, the company chose Viewpoint for its power and flexibility.

“So many accounting solutions we looked at use proprietary databases with less than stellar ODBC support. Viewpoint has the power and flexibility we needed to accommodate our firm’s growth and change” says Jared Faulkner, J.F. Electric’s director of information technology.

While looking for its new accounting program, J.F. Electric learned about PowerTrack, the enterprise mobility solution from Control Solutions. PowerTrack is designed to integrate with many construction accounting packages, including Viewpoint.

“We were looking for a solution that was powerful and extensible,” notes Faulkner. “We wanted a solution that could grow with us and adapt to meet the rapidly changing needs of a construction subcontractor. Viewpoint and PowerTrack together are more powerful and flexible than any of the integrated tools we looked at.”

Faulker says that J.F. Electric chose the Viewpoint and PowerTrack combination because the products offered a secure solution that was still flexible and open. With SQL Server on the backend, Viewpoint afforded the company the opportunity to work with a number of powerful database tools to maximize J.F. Electric’s investment. PowerTrack fit into their plans to use an industry standard database.

“Coming from a product with a proprietary database and very little integration potential, we were delighted with the ease of integrating PowerTrack into our workflow,” observes Faulkner. “Furthermore, we can see the potential for additional PowerTrack uses as we grow and develop.”

J.F. Electric currently uses PowerTrack in conjunction with inventory tasks. Warehouse personnel use Symbol PPT 8800-series PDAs to look up and track material location, cost and inventory on hand. Using the PDA’s scanner, workers assign material to jobs. When a warehouse staff person assigns material to a job and posts the record, PowerTrack sends the information to Viewpoint. This data is used for a wide variety of accounting and project management processes.

PowerTrack makes it easy for warehouse staff to track inventory and assign material, ensuring that needed material is available for jobs. PowerTrack also provides cost and material usage data to estimators, improving  J.F. Electric’s competitiveness.

Timecard entry and equipment cost tracking are other eventual uses the company is exploring.

According to Faulkner, PowerTrack's outward simplicity and ease of use makes it the perfect choice to allow users with less computer experience to interface with the accounting system safely and with very little training. End users needed only a few minutes to become proficient.

The Results

Since implementing PowerTrack, J.F. Electric has increased its volume without requiring a major increase in warehouse staff. More important, the company is able to track job costs with much greater accuracy. Accurate cost data allows the company to refine its estimating process, identify and avoid potential supply bottlenecks, and achieve greater economies of scale in purchasing.

Says Faulkner, “There was no question — none at all — based on our evaluation of nearly a dozen packages, that Viewpoint and PowerTrack together was the right solution to take us to the next level.”

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