General Equipment & Supplies Customer Success Story

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General Equipment & Supplies was founded in 1984 by former employees of General Diesel & Equipment, focusing on heavy-duty aggregate and mining equipment.

Their primary focus has been to supply heavy construction equipment to the construction, mining, oil exploration, and municipal governments in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Iowa. General Equipment and Supplies currently has 250 employees in 9 US locations in ND, SD, MN, and IA. They also have two Canadian locations in Regina, SK and Winnipeg, MB.

General Equipment & Supplies

Headquartered: Fargo, North Dakota, US

Founded: 1984

Locations: 8 locations in 3 US states

Industries: Construction, Cranes, Aggregate, and Mining

OEMs: JCB, Kobelco, Komatsu, Terex/Cedarrapids, Link-Belt, Lippman and more

Challenges

Before e-Emphasys, General Equipment & Supplies was using a legacy system for their operations that did not give them the adaptable, modern system they needed. They were looking for something to cut down on administrative time, while providing high level reporting and monitoring.

“Pre e-Emphasys, our technicians’ efficiency with paperwork and processing was extremely slow. Our technicians were spending hours, hours and hours working on their paperwork everyday. Post e-Emphasys, they’re spending approximately 15-30 minutes a day getting all the stories in, all the paperwork done, cutting all those hours out of their time every day. It’s easily exceeded the 100% efficiency in that area of their job. To go from 2-3 hours a day, doing paperwork, to 15-30 minutes, it’s mind-blowing,’ says Steve Stafki, Vice President of Service.

Solutions

GES participated in a dealer consortium, which outlined the system requirements and scrutinized three major vendors. GES selected e-Emphasys ERP for three main reasons: its breadth and flexibility, its strong monitoring and reporting capabilities for department managers and owners, and its modern and future-proof technology foundation.

e-Emphasys has brought improvements to the business on a day-to-day basis. “From the accounts receivable side of things, in customer dashboard being able to see age days, what invoices are due right now, what invoices have been paid, what check numbers, whatever, just all of that information is right there at your fingertips, it’s amazing,” says Sarah Firth, Director of Customer Relations.

“So, we’re able to look at our WIP on a daily basis and see where we are at, know what’s there. We’ve got several things in managing WIP, eServiceTech we use that a lot, you know, where our employees are, or our service techs are at, that sort of thing. So, it’s really been tremendous there to be able to know what’s going in, what’s going out and be able to close our work orders in the 10-day time frame that we want,” Tanya Groft, Vice President of Finance explains. For Groft, it is not only these reporting and monitoring capabilities but the modern, real – time access to the system that makes e-Emphasys the platform of choice for General Equipment & Supplies. “Speed of the system. I go to other places, you know, when I get to connect in and stuff and it’s like night and day,” says Groft.

Our customer satisfaction with e-Emphasys has definitely increased as we’re able to get information, we’re able to real time look at, look at inventories and get answers to our customers when they’re sitting right in front of us. In the office, we’re able to tell them what inventories we have, whether it be at the location that we’re currently sitting at or one of our other many branches.

- Jon Shilling, President & CEO, General Equipment & Supplies, Inc.

Results & Benefits

The ROI on e-Emphasys has been a great benefit for General Equipment, as Firth says, “with e-Emphasys ERP, our ROI is second to none.” Groft says, “Since we started e-Emphasys we have doubled our revenue. The improvements we’ve seen, process wise, the improvements from employment wise, with people to the processes, have been tremendous. We’ve had huge growth in the last 5-6 years in our industry with what’s going on in North Dakota, and with that, we’ve been able to maintain and keep our labor force at a minimal amount by using the software that we have available to us. And using the e-Emphasys product that has allowed us to be able to do that more easily, more streamlined, know what’s hitting what and where everything is going.”

e-Emphasys has helped GES to provide a high level of customer service as well. “Our customer satisfaction with e-Emphasys has definitely increased as we’re able to get information, we’re able to real time look at, look at inventories and get answers to our customers when they’re sitting right in front of us. In the office, we’re able to tell them what inventories we have, whether it be at the location that we’re currently sitting at or one of our other many branches,” explains Jon Shilling, President & CEO. There is instantaneous access to the information that customers need, expanding customer loyalty.

For more information about General Equipment and Supplies, Tri-State Machinery and Aggregate Equipment and Supplies, please visit genequip.com.