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PowerTrack and
Viewpoint Together Provide Power and Flexibility for Commercial Electrical
Contractor
 
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 POSDATA. 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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