With Digio by Jonas, Action Electrical & Mechanical Contractors Stays Competitive by Going Green and Reducing Paper-Based Processes

Executive Summary 

To increase efficiency and stay competitive, Action Electrical & Mechanical Contractors needed to 'go green' by reducing their paper-based processes. Digio by Jonas offered an integrated, full-featured document management solution that was both cost effective and easy to deploy.

 Customer Profile 

 Action Electrical & Mechanical Contractors is a turnkey specialty contractor that provides plan and spec,design-build and maintenance services to a wide range of clients in the commercial and industrial markets. In addition to electrical and mechanical construction and service, Action offers sheet metal fabrication, pipe fitting and millwright services, and has been pursuing new opportunities in the auto and food process industries.

Founded in 1945 as Painter Electric, the Smyrna, GA-based company was purchased by Mickey S. Poe in 1978. Under Poe’s leadership, Action has grown into a thriving, full-service union contracting firm with 250 employees and annual revenues of $35M to $53M. The company is ranked #327 on ENR’s 2010 Top 600 Specialty Contractors list, and is an active member in a number of professional trade organizations, including the Mechanical Contractors Association of America (MCAA).

Business Challenge 

Like most construction companies, Action was buried in paperwork. From job files and invoices to material receiving tickets and work orders, every activity was managed on paper – and storage space for the company's paper archives was running out. As Action's leaders looked toward the future, they knew that their current recycling program wasn’t enough. Adopting greener business processes that reduced paper would be important for increasing efficiency, staying competitive and supporting the environment.

Years ago, Action's Chief Operating Officer (COO), William Redding, looked for a stand-alone document management system that would integrate with the company's accounting software. But the options were limited. "The price on the first document management system we looked at blew us out of the water," he recalls. "It had a starting price of $50k, and there was no guarantee that it would work with our current accounting program."

Action decided to table their document management search and turn their attention to another pressing need: replacing their multiple legacy software systems with a single, integrated solution that would handle both accounting and service management. Surprisingly, this new technology initiative would eventually solve Action's paper problem.

Jonas Solution

In 2008, after evaluating nearly a dozen different construction management systems, Action purchased Jonas Software. With Jonas, the company was able to integrate core accounting functions, including job costing, multi-union payroll, purchasing, inventory and equipment management, with service management and dispatching. At the time, Jonas was preparing to unveil their new document management system. Digio is a full-featured solution for storing, organizing, managing and sharing documents electronically. "When we found out that Jonas was developing a document management system," Redding says, "we were thrilled."

Action jumped at the chance to get in on the ground floor of Digio, which has a robust feature set that includes full integration with Jonas and Microsoft Office; intuitive search and retrieval functions; paper document capture and electronic file attachment; user-based security controls and automated routing that enhances workflow. 

In July 2009, Action began their quest to reduce paper by using Digio to create digital archives for completed work orders that included all related information, such as the service ticket, materials used and customer invoice. "Once a work order is billed, everything 'prints' to Digio automatically," Redding explains. This streamlines Action's collection process by eliminating the need to retrieve paper records from multiple departments when answering customer questions or making collection phone calls.    

After successfully utilizing Digio with work orders, Action migrated many other paper-based processes to Digio, including accounts payable (AP), accounts receivable (AR) and project close-out.

Benefits for Action Contractors 

"Converting to Jonas and Digio has prompted us to reevaluate our processes and how we manage our business, which has made us more efficient. And that's a very good thing in this economy," Redding states. "By using Jonas, we now have four or five people handling the volume of work that used to be done by seven or eight employees." 

Digio has improved the company's collection process and inter-department workflow. It also saves time associated with filing and retrieving documents, searching for misfiled paperwork and getting information to remote job sites. "We have a fairly large field office that's two hours away," Redding explains. "The project team used to call the main office to request documents like AP invoices. With Digio, that information is now at their fingertips." 

Action's shrinking paper job files provide a great example of the time and paper savings associated with electronic document management. "Although it was very time consuming, we used to put duplicate copies of purchase orders, AP invoices and AR invoices in each job file," Redding says. "Now our project managers can run a quick query in Digio and access this information in moments." 

Digio also provides cost control benefits by helping to ensure that Action doesn't over-pay on material invoices. For example, signed receiving tickets are scanned and filed by job number for easy reference and reconciliation when invoices come in, so catching mistakes like quantity errors on vendor invoices has never been easier. Spotting potential job cost over-runs is easier, too. "If job numbers look a little off," Redding says, "all the information we need to investigate is in Digio." 

Improved customer service is another benefit of Digio. "When a customer calls with a document request," Redding states, "we don't have to say, 'Let me get back to you.' Instead, we can pull the document up in seconds and e-mail it to them while they're still on the phone.

Looking Forward 

Looking forward, Action plans to continue the adoption of Digio by encouraging their project managers to utilize the full power of paperless job files. "Digio is such a great tool, and Jonas is continually improving it to keep up with new technology," Redding says. The company is also planning to further streamline their service operations by adding Jonas Mobile to their solution. "Our customers are impressed that we use technology to deliver information to them faster. I'm excited by the future possibilities with Jonas."