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Case Study
Aquatec Fluid Systems
LOCATION:
Shepparton, VIC 3630
INDUSTRY:
Manufacturing

About Aquatec Fluid Systems

Aquatec has had 30 years’ experience providing water and wastewater solutions to local government and commercial enterprises through the Australasian region. With plans to expand the business and improve on efficiencies, Aquatec required an internal system that would grow with their business.

Why Move to NetSuite

Tanya Caruana, Business Process Manager at Aquatec Fluid Systems says, a detailed and thorough assessment of various ERP solutions lead to the selection of NetSuite.

“When we were searching for a system, we found that NetSuite was the only system that was fully integrated, cloud-based and didn’t need to be fully customised from the beginning. It’s out of the box capability met most of our needs and the additional modules and customisations would cover the rest of our unique requirements.”

“It appeared easy to use, fairly intuitive and would provide the visibility that our business required. The fact that other reputable companies were using it added to our confidence” Tanya says.

The biggest draw card for Aquatec was the systems business transparency. NetSuite offers Aquatec a platform where every aspect of the business can be monitored and managed – it enables the leaders of the business to see areas performing well as well as those needing improvement.

Centralised data was necessary. The company originally operated a number of disparate systems, making it difficult to instantly see current customer information and transactions. With NetSuite, this became feasible.

“All information is centralised within Netsuite and the soft links make it easy to find the detail we are looking for from any starting point – this is key to our business as we can pull up customer history or inventory levels in no time,” Tanya says.

“The system helped us eliminate duplication and we can easily all aspects of our data. We still use outlook calendars however the NetSuite activities allow us to plan sales trips, record information and not lose sight of viable opportunities very easily”.

As the company have a large warehouse, inventory management was a key issue prior to implementing NetSuite. Since implementing, Tanya has seen a significant improvement in their warehouse management.

“There has been quite a big difference [since implementing NetSuite] as the previous system was manual. Keeping track of inventory on hand value and being able to manage our stock minimum and maximums quantities has been an enormous benefit”

Challenges Faced Before Implementation

Operating with multiple disparate systems, Aquatec saw the need for more efficiency and visibility over the company.

Business challenges Aquatec faced:

  • Manual entry of data and duplication of work
  • Manual quoting to work order processes
  • Multiple, disparate systems
  • Manual inventory issues, and challenges with stock management and allocation
  • Challenging to analyse job costings
  • Lack of visibility of company deliverables in the warehouse. Inventory tracking and allocation against sales orders were a manual process.
  • Lack of real-time
    data
  • Lack of easily visible data over entire business performance

Aquatec’s Business Requirements

Aquatec required a single platform to consolidate their multiple, disparate systems, and give them visibility over their entire business. From sales to finance, through to service delivery, they needed to see the areas of business that were costing and making them money. Business intelligence, financial transparency and inventory management were key business areas that needed to be evaluated as part of a new platform.

Aquatec’s key business requirements:

  • Remove manual quoting to work order processes and replace with automated workflows
  • Reduce double handling and the risk of errors in the quote to order process
  • Consolidate systems into one unified platform
  • Address manual inventory issues, stock allocation and ability to analyse job costings
  • Improve productivity in the warehouse via bin allocation, inventory tracking and allocation against sales orders
  • Implement a system that unifies Aquatec’s three entities for consolidated reporting, streamlined analysis and the ability to review financial data in real time
  • Significantly improve management of projects and get visibility of tasks, resourcing and transparency across the business departments
  • Address Aquatec’s multiple quote to supply against a single opportunity as part of the CRM management
  • Improve marketing campaign analysis and planning
  • Enable warranty and returns visibility through serial tracking, case management and quote to repair
  • Enable visibility on item usage, stock on hand, demand replenishment, and supplier orders, pricing and performance.

“NetSuite gave us visibility of our deliverables and traceability of our despatches – also we are now reporting on DIFOT (Delivery In Full On Time), which helps us improve our processes and efficiencies for our customers.” Tanya says.

It has been just over twelve months since implementing the system and Aquatec have seen significant productivity improvements in the business. Tanya is now focused on phase two implementation and seeing the company’s continuing growth.

For more information on Aquatec, click here.