Microsoft implementation secures new business for Airmaster

A newly integrated solution by Professional Advantage has increased sales, improved information availability and significantly reduced administration for this national heating, ventilation, air conditioning and building automation business...

Airmaster Australia is a full service heating, ventilation, air conditioning and building automation specialist.

Its fleet of over 130 service vehicles and 265 quality assurance-focused staff provide a range of services to large commercial organisations including shopping centres, major retail chains, banks, high rise buildings, auditoriums, cinemas, hotels and resorts, sporting venues, public and private health facilities, warehouses and even ocean vessels.

From its headquarters in Melbourne and with offices in most Australian capital cities, the company provides 24 hour service nationally and offers a speedy target response time of just two hours.

Problem
Airmaster is a services company in a niche, but highly competitive, industry. Its reputation, customer base and business are built on technical excellence and a talent for exceeding customer expectations.

Maintaining its industry-leading position calls for a proactive approach to service delivery and requires the ability to provide customers with in-depth information relating to their equipment, service contracts and maintenance schedules. Over the years Airmaster had developed three main corporate IT systems to help manage the business and to deliver the necessary information to customers.

Developed in-house on an AS/400, the systems were competent but restrictive. With no integration, data existed in separate silos, making analysis difficult if not impossible. The design was not particularly user friendly nor was it intuitive. This meant that only a select number of staff with the necessary training could get any information out of the systems. This increased administrative load and made it difficult for service staff and management to source the data they needed.

By 2005, with some clients beginning to request provision of reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs), it was obvious that Airmaster needed to change its IT systems. Wayne Bover, Airmaster’s IT and communications manager explains: “Airmaster provides monthly reports to customers and holds regular meetings so we can discuss any feedback. The kind of information we need to offer includes the number of service calls made and the number of calls relating to particular pieces of equipment. We wanted to provide statistical information relating to maintenance and service costs that would help customers to budget for future needs.”

Solution
The company required a single, integrated financial system that could also be extended to manage the depth of detail contained in their maintenance contracts.

Evaluations led to the short listing of two solutions and Airmaster ultimately selected a Microsoft Dynamics GP solution that combined the core Microsoft Dynamics GP software with fully integrated Job Costing and Service Management modules developed by Microsoft partner, WennSoft.

As well as being able to handle maintenance in the detail required, other big pluses for the Microsoft solution were its user friendliness and availability of mobility – for seamless connection of data between the office and field staff.

Implementation
The initially selected implementation partner was a small organisation without the depth of experience or resources that Airmaster required. As a result, the project soon ran into problems and within seven months, Airmaster called in Professional Advantage to take over.

“We’d dealt with staff at Professional Advantage before and felt they had a much more thorough understanding of the system and our business. They are a more professional outfit with more resources,” Bover says.

With the implementation back on track, Airmaster went live with Microsoft Dynamics GP in late 2006.

In addition to job costing and service management, system functionality includes the general ledger, bank reconciliations, purchase order processing, fixed assets, receivables management, inventory and parts lists.

The company also installed two Professional Advantage software add-ons written especially for Microsoft Dynamics GP: BankPro for electronic funds transfer and reconciliations, and EmailPro which enables electronic distribution of remittance advices, purchase orders and other financial documents.

The company’s first impressions – particularly in relation to the integration of the solution - were good. “The layout of the software is driven by Microsoft Dynamics GP, so you can’t tell where Microsoft ends and WennSoft begins,” Bover explains. “Being Windows-based it is very familiar and quite easy to learn.”

Benefits
One of the major benefits of the new system has been a reduction in administrative demand. While the company has continued to grow and develop, it has been able to reduce administrative staff numbers by approximately 25 percent, redeploying them to other areas of the business.

These efficiencies have been achieved through system automation in a number of areas. The manual banking system that required cheques and signatories has largely been done away with, replaced by electronic creditor payments. The savings in paper, time and other resources has been significant.

Airmaster Australia is a full service heating, ventilation, air conditioning and building automation specialist.

Its fleet of over 130 service vehicles and 265 quality assurance-focused staff provide a range of services to large commercial organisations including shopping centres, major retail chains, banks, high rise buildings, auditoriums, cinemas, hotels and resorts, sporting venues, public and private health facilities, warehouses and even ocean vessels.

From its headquarters in Melbourne and with offices in most Australian capital cities, the company provides 24 hour service nationally and offers a speedy target response time of just two hours.

Problem
Airmaster is a services company in a niche, but highly competitive, industry. Its reputation, customer base and business are built on technical excellence and a talent for exceeding customer expectations.

Maintaining its industry-leading position calls for a proactive approach to service delivery and requires the ability to provide customers with in-depth information relating to their equipment, service contracts and maintenance schedules.

Over the years Airmaster had developed three main corporate IT systems to help manage the business and to deliver the necessary information to customers.

Developed in-house on an AS/400, the systems were competent but restrictive. With no integration, data existed in separate silos, making analysis difficult if not impossible.

The design was not particularly user friendly nor was it intuitive. This meant that only a select number of staff with the necessary training could get any information out of the systems. This increased administrative load and made it difficult for service staff and management to source the data they needed.

By 2005, with some clients beginning to request provision of reporting of key performance indicators (KPIs), it was obvious that Airmaster needed to change its IT systems.

Wayne Bover, Airmaster’s IT and communications manager explains: “Airmaster provides monthly reports to customers and holds regular meetings so we can discuss any feedback. The kind of information we need to offer includes the number of service calls made and the number of calls relating to particular pieces of equipment. We wanted to provide statistical information relating to maintenance and service costs that would help customers to budget for future needs.”

Solution
The company required a single, integrated financial system that could also be extended to manage the depth of detail contained in their maintenance contracts.

Evaluations led to the short listing of two solutions and Airmaster ultimately selected a Microsoft Dynamics GP solution that combined the core Microsoft Dynamics GP software with fully integrated Job Costing and Service Management modules developed by Microsoft partner, WennSoft.

As well as being able to handle maintenance in the detail required, other big pluses for the Microsoft solution were its user friendliness and availability of mobility – for seamless connection of data between the office and field staff.

Implementation
The initially selected implementation partner was a small organisation without the depth of experience or resources that Airmaster required. As a result, the project soon ran into problems and within seven months, Airmaster called in Professional Advantage to take over.

“We’d dealt with staff at Professional Advantage before and felt they had a much more thorough understanding of the system and our business. They are a more professional outfit with more resources,” Bover says.

With the implementation back on track, Airmaster went live with Microsoft Dynamics GP in late 2006.

In addition to job costing and service management, system functionality includes the general ledger, bank reconciliations, purchase order processing, fixed assets, receivables management, inventory and parts lists.

The company also installed two Professional Advantage software add-ons written especially for Microsoft Dynamics GP: BankPro for electronic funds transfer and reconciliations, and EmailPro which enables electronic distribution of remittance advices, purchase orders and other financial documents.

The company’s first impressions – particularly in relation to the integration of the solution - were good.

“The layout of the software is driven by Microsoft Dynamics GP, so you can’t tell where Microsoft ends and WennSoft begins,” Bover explains. “Being Windows-based it is very familiar and quite easy to learn.”

Benefits
One of the major benefits of the new system has been a reduction in administrative demand.

While the company has continued to grow and develop, it has been able to reduce administrative staff numbers by approximately 25 percent, redeploying them to other areas of the business.

These efficiencies have been achieved through system automation in a number of areas. The manual banking system that required cheques and signatories has largely been done away with, replaced by electronic creditor payments. The savings in paper, time and other resources has been significant.

The single database has reduced data entry and delivered a corresponding reduction in the potential for manual error.

Kevin Schoenmakers, WennSoft product manager at Professional Advantage comments: “The new system has improved availability of information for Airmaster and provided the company with a multitude of reports helping it better track performance of the maintenance contracts and ensure that customer requirements are met. As a next step in this direction, we are now discussing implementing Analysis Cubes for WennSoft – a business intelligence solution developed by Professional Advantage.”

The introduction of a graphical schedule board has enabled anyone within the company to identify at a glance outstanding service calls, confirm upcoming jobs or check where a technician is.

The state-of-the-art system is also helping Airmaster win contracts. Larger customers audit Airmaster’s systems as part of their own quality assurance and procurement programs.

They also visit the sites prior to awarding them contracts. In July 2008 a large national retailer with over 70 sites across Australia awarded Airmaster its mechanical services contract.

It included a requirement for up-to-theminute electronic maintenance data so that Airmaster could tell the customer what was serviced and when.

The technology that Airmaster is now using was instrumental in helping to win the contract.

Future
With many of its technicians almost permanently on the road, the company is keen to extend the Microsoft Dynamics GP functionality to mobile devices.

Already a number of such devices have been introduced and they are being used to provide technicians with task and scheduling data, contract information and to manage automatic recording of technician’s times and expenses.

The roll-out is being staged gradually to enable staff to learn from, and maximise the benefits of, the technology. Within the year Bover expects to the company to have complete mobile connectivity.

This not only will increase efficiency of the field staff, but will reduce the leakage of expenses and improve cash flow.

The portals functionality within Microsoft Dynamics GP is another possibility that Bover is keen to explore.

“We are still to decide exactly how we want to use this but it is definitely an area that we intend to look at within the next 12 months. Ideally we’d like to set up one all-encompassing portal that we can use to communicate with all our stakeholders – including clients, technicians and office staff.”

Bover envisages a site that will allow customers to log and monitor their own service calls, check maintenance schedules and review equipment records. It’s an obvious extension of the system and that works in very with Airmaster’s goal of continuous improvement.

“We’re not restricted by our system any more,” Bover concludes. “In fact it’s helping us grow as a business.

It allows us to service customers better and at the end of the day, we are a service company. It’s what we are all about.”

For more information

Professional Advantage
www.pa.com.au
info@pa.com.au

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