Progressive Engineering Southland

The Story

Progressive Engineering Southland Now Enjoys: A centralized system streamlining operations with a leaner office team.

Progressive Engineering Southland Now Has: A $50,000 improvement in stock management, reducing losses and improving tracking.

Progressive Engineering Southland Now Can: Achieve quicker turnaround of payments, enhancing cash flow and client satisfaction.

Who They Are

Progressive Engineering Southland has been a trusted name in the dairy industry for 30 years. Initially starting as a golf cart servicing business, the company evolved into a leader in dairy shed design, build, and maintenance. Over the past decade, it has expanded its operations from Southland to Central Otago, offering a wide range of services, including irrigation systems, dairy effluent solutions, heat pump installations, and electrical and refrigeration services. Co-owner Gareth Cowan leads a team of 40 dedicated professionals, ensuring top-quality service for their clients.

What They Do

Progressive Engineering Southland specializes in servicing and designing dairy sheds while also providing maintenance and installation solutions for key agricultural infrastructure. Their team’s diverse skill set allows them to cater to every aspect of dairy farming operations, from irrigation and effluent systems to advanced refrigeration technology.

Why They Started With Simpro

• Before adopting Simpro, Progressive Engineering Southland faced several operational challenges:
• Paperwork was often lost or incomplete.
• Tracking stock across multiple locations was unreliable, leading to missing inventory.
• Reporting metrics such as productivity, non-recoverable time, and warranty work required extensive manual effort and was prone to errors.
• Multiple spreadsheets and fragmented data sources made managing operations and generating insights a cumbersome process.

The team needed a solution that could centralize their operations, improve stock management, and provide accurate, actionable reporting.

How Simpro Changed Things

Simpro provided Progressive Engineering Southland with a comprehensive solution to their pain points:

• Streamlined Stock Control: Simpro’s ability to track stock across multiple locations brought unprecedented clarity. Regular stocktakes became efficient, and missing inventory could be identified and addressed quickly. This resulted in a year-over-year improvement of $50,000 in stock management.
• Centralized Reporting: The powerful reporting tools in Simpro delivered accurate, easy-to-generate insights, allowing the company to make informed decisions. Metrics like productivity and non-recoverable time became simple to monitor and optimize.
• Quoting Efficiency: The Prebuild function dramatically reduced the time required for quotes while maintaining accuracy.
• Better Payment Cycles: Improved invoice processing and onsite payment options enabled faster customer payments, enhancing cash flow.
• Integrated Systems: Seamless integration with Xero ensured that financial data was always accessible, accurate, and easy to manage.

According to Gareth, the transparency and data quality enabled by Simpro transformed their business, allowing the team to focus on strategic goals rather than chasing paperwork and data.

Where To Next

Progressive Engineering Southland is poised for continued growth with Simpro as the backbone of their operations. The team plans to expand their asset management capabilities, ensuring compliance and proactive maintenance for their clients. Gareth encourages other trade businesses to take the leap, saying, “If you're a trades-based business, this software works. Rip the band-aid off and do it. The transparency it provides is invaluable.”