Norberg Electric
“We save a lot of time and money with Simpro. Before Simpro, it took probably an hour to generate an estimate. Now, creating an estimate only takes about 10 minutes.”
Erik Norberg, Operations Manager
Headquarters
Elgin, Illinois, US
Industry
Electrical and Auto Maintenance
Employees
20
Website
The challenges
Difficult manual processes
One of the biggest challenges Norberg Electric faced prior to discovering Simpro was losing billable hours due to poor communication and manual processes.
“Before Simpro, it was hard to find attachments for a particular job. Everything was sent in separate emails, and finding those emails was time consuming and difficult,” Operations Manager Erik Norberg said.
Job attachments weren’t the only thing that was difficult to track down. Job details and other site information is vital for accurate project management, and the team at Norberg often found it challenging to retrieve that data.
“The techs and electricians don’t always like taking notes, and it was always a struggle to stay on top of them to record job details. Especially when it came to recording the materials they used on a job,” Erik said.
Another manual task that was a challenge for field staff was clocking in and out of jobs, tracking their travel time and then adding in the pay rates.
“If we had a big job with multiple techs punching in and out, it would just become a mess,” Erik said. “Even though we had software for timesheets and payroll, those platforms weren’t created to handle our specific workflows.”
The business dealt with these challenges until Erik’s business partner, Sergio Gammeri, recommended Simpro. Sergio uses Simpro at his own business — Preferred Mechanical Company — and thought it would be a helpful tool for Norberg Electric.
“I did a walkthrough of Simpro, and it looked like it would do exactly what we needed it to do. I could tell that it would especially help with getting our technicians to send work orders and notes,” Erik said.
The results
Simplified processes and time saved
One of the top benefits that Norberg has seen since implementing Simpro is a decrease in the amount of time it takes to generate estimates. Estimates that originally took one hour, now only take ten minutes.
“When my staff generates estimates, I have pictures of the materials next to the item. Instead of reading every little part, the team can just look at the picture next to the item. This really helps speed up the estimating process, and it’s saved us a lot of time and money,” Erik said. “On bigger jobs before Simpro, it would take us 40 hours to do a full blueprint. Now, it only takes about four hours.”
Another benefit Norberg has seen with Simpro is streamlined asset management. As an electric and auto maintenance business, Norberg does a lot of work with various equipment.
“With Simpro, we’re able to view assets and attach pictures to the job,” Erik said. “I’m able to attach manuals and technical information for the customer and the site, and it helps out a lot. Every site has its own information, we attach those details to the job, and everybody can see it. This is incredible for us with assets.”
Faster quoting and simplified asset management have made a huge improvement to processes at Norberg Electric. Additionally, Simpro has alleviated a lot of the challenges around encouraging field staff to record and submit job details.
“Field staff are able to add materials to Simpro while on jobs rather than having someone in the office attempt to add details to the catalog,” Erik said. “Now the guys are actually adding the materials into the job themselves, and that’s very helpful for us.”
Erik is also grateful that he can now complete everything in one program. “I can do all the same work I did in two programs now just in Simpro. For example, my accountants use accounting software on their end, but I don’t touch it. It’s great to just use one program rather than jumping between multiple platforms,” Erik said.
Word of advice?
“I’m glad I listened to our Implementation Consultant and took the time to put a lot of information in the system,” Erik said. “The more information you put into Simpro, the more it’s going to be a helpful tool for you. It takes time, but once your data is in Simpro, completing tasks is just a click of a button. I’m very grateful that we found Simpro.”
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