A&G Engineering – Improving business efficiency
How Pronto Xi is helping an engineering business grow its bottom line
A&G Engineering designs, fabricates and distributes stainless-steel products, and has done so for more than 60 years. Headquartered in Griffith, New South Wales, the company has established itself as an industry leader across the food and drink, petrochemical and water treatment sectors. Its competitive advantage? Its state-of-the-art automated welding technology and proprietary processes.
About our customer
A&G are an Australian family-owned and operated manufacturing company, founded in 1963. They specialise in stainless steel fabrication and stainless steel componentry distribution.
Pain points
With an outdated ERP system, A&G Engineering needed a solution that could modernise their operations, streamline processes, maximise operational efficiencies and gain better control and visibility over their business.
Benefits gained
Pronto Xi has provided the business with delivering real-time reporting and the ability to handle data across multiple business divisions to track orders, labour and pricing.
Modernising operations
For decades, A&G Engineering had experienced continued growth and expansion, cementing its manufacturing model with a design and distribution operation that included, at one point, a John Deere agricultural equipment dealership.
With the John Deere dealership came a legacy system – an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system designed for tractor dealerships. A&G Engineering adapted the ERP to suit its needs, but the system was riddled with manual workarounds. It also lacked standardised processes and struggled to provide the business with real-time business insights.
As the privately owned family business continued to scale, the limitations of the outdated system became increasingly apparent. A&G Engineering needed a solution to modernise its operations, streamline processes, maximise operational efficiencies and gain better control and visibility over its business. After two-and-a-half years of research, it landed on Pronto Xi.
A single source of truth
Strategically, the organisation sought a unified ERP solution that would provide it with a single source of truth across all areas of the business. And it needed to make the right decision – one that would serve the business and staff for the long term.
While there were several issues to address, one of the biggest was the business’s disparate systems and reliance on manual Excel spreadsheets. This created a fragmented data landscape, with information spread across multiple systems and formats – and, in turn, hindered A&G Engineering’s ability to understand critical financial metrics, and achieve the standardisation and streamlined reporting the business required.
“We would have to enter things three times in three different places,” says Tom Gallagher, Chief Executive Officer of A&G Engineering. “The old system we had was holding us back. Pronto Software provided us with a flexible ERP solution that addressed our key needs for data visibility and process standardisation – all while ensuring it would scale alongside our growing business.”
Improving efficiency and the bottom line
The implementation of Pronto Xi was part of a drive to improve efficiency across all areas of A&G Engineering’s operations. “Improving efficiency by even one percent could equate to significant increases in revenue,” says Mr Gallagher. “We need to always look to work smarter and be more efficient.”
What Pronto Xi brought to the table was data accuracy and consistency across core functions such as pricing, order management and labour tracking, which were previously challenging to maintain. This was particularly important as “we need to make sure we don’t take orders and make promises and then sell that stock to someone else,” says Mr Gallagher.
Pronto Xi equipped the business with the tools to comprehensively improve its efficiency – not an easy task for a complex organisation with diverse demands – in a user-friendly package that could easily be adopted by staff.
Additionally, it allowed A&G Engineering to better manage volatile pricing for materials such as steel, and factor this into customer pricing. This helped protect margins and, ultimately, the bottom line.
“[Pronto Software] took a great deal of time and effort in the sales phase to understand our needs and provide solutions.”
– Tom Gallagher, Chief Executive Officer, A&G Engineering
Gaining a trusted advisor
For A&G Engineering, the decision to partner with a single ERP provider was consistent with the company’s broader business objectives. Its aim? To streamline operations, significantly reduce complexity and get real-time insight into financial performance.
With Pronto Software, the team developed a strong, collaborative relationship built on a deep understanding of A&G Engineering’s unique business needs – through the sales process. The partnership enabled seamless communication and efficient problem-solving and created a shared vision for future opportunities and goals. It also provided a single point of accountability.
“[Pronto Software] took a great deal of time and effort in the sales phase to understand our needs and provide solutions. They were great at getting answers to our sometimes silly and repeated questions, and we chose them with the confidence that this would continue through implementation and beyond,” says Mr Gallagher.
By engaging a single partner, the company ensured that all aspects of the ERP project, from development to deployment, were aligned using a consistent methodology. This streamlined approach minimised the risk of potential inconsistencies, errors and delays.
Ultimately, partnering with Pronto Software has provided A&G Engineering with a catalyst for continued growth and innovation, with assistance from a “trusted advisor”. By streamlining its operations, improving financial visibility and enabling data-driven decision-making, the company find itself well-positioned to meet the challenges of scalability – and to do so sustainably.
Powerful reporting
A key focus for A&G Engineering was the financial governance that would enable the business to track costs, revenue and, above all, profitability across multiple businesses. Pronto Xi became a one-stop shop, giving A&G Engineering a comprehensive, adaptable solution aligned with its long-term growth.
Pronto Xi has provided A&G Engineering with:
- the ability to deliver key business information in real time, enabling solid and strategic decision-making
- the ability to handle data across multiple divisions and cost centres, using a high degree of automation
- comprehensive budgeting and online sales tools
- the ability to track labour and costs, and manage pricing for steel, which is “always changing”
- the ability to manage the full asset lifecycle, from acquisition to end of life.
For a business where unified visibility of numerous business operations had been an issue, this new clarity around A&G Engineering’s financial performance has been critical in saving time and money, protecting margins, and growing market share and revenue.
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