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Adapting to change and saving 2,500 hours a year

How SGESCO-MAX pivoted to become a modern, scalable and leaner manufacturing business, with Wiise ERP.

2,500

hours saved per year

8%

efficiency improvement per year

2 hours

to complete payroll (previously 2 days)

“We could not have achieved everything that we have, in such a short period of time without Wiise. The business is in such a better place. The investment has been absolutely critical to the survival and scalability of our business.”

Scott Macpherson, Managing Director at SGECSCO-MAX

Before Wiise

Slow, outdated Wang system meant simple payroll tasks took up to 2 days a fortnight to complete.

Unable to perform basic manufacturing tasks, including assemblies and production planning.

No integration with other systems or ability to track production.

Small team of 18 people struggling to manage workloads and capacity.  

With Wiise

Faster, simpler processes, saving staff up to 2,500 hours a year.

Better inventory management, with the ability to manage assemblies, sub-assemblies and sell customer ‘kits’.

Native integration with Microsoft 365, enabling access reporting directly from Dynamics CRM or Power BI.

New online store created, using the Wiise native Shopify integration.

Scott Macpherson from SGESCO-MAX
Scott Macpherson

Managing Director at SGESCO-MAX

Meet Scott McPherson. In 2020, Scott joined SGESCO-MAX – a company started by his father Albert, in 1962, now a leader in vehicle safety and monitoring solutions.

Bringing 30 years of professional services experience, Scott saw a lot of opportunity to grow the company, including pivoting the business from services to manufacturing. But it was clear none of this would be possible without a serious overhaul of its business software.

Pivoting into a manufacturing-focused business

Albert McPherson was an innovator and had heavily invested in the ground-breaking Wang computer system in the mid-1980s. The Wang technology had served the company well but, by the time Scott had joined, it was clear the ‘green screen’ system needed to change.

Road with blue lights on

Pivoting the company to manufacturing its safety products, instead of installing them, meant Scott needed a system that could provide key manufacturing functionality, like forecasting and manage its bill of materials (BOM).

“The system just wasn’t built to handle manufacturing. We couldn’t manage assembly orders and had no data to help us plan for capacity – to tell us how many jobs we could handle or how much money we could make”.

Bus driver wearing a seat belt

Giving a small team more time

Scott chose Wiise ERP based on its deep Microsoft integrations and the ways in which it could help the business to scale. Within 12 months of go-live, the business had begun to see real benefits – the most notable being significant time-savings. So far, Scott estimates:

  • 2,500 hours a year saved (equivalent of 1.5 of a team member) across the business. A significant saving for a team of just 18 people.
  • Up to 60% of time freed-up for his finance manager – saving Scott himself up to 3 days a week in chasing down data and reporting.
  • Fortnightly payroll tasks reduced from two days to just two hours.
New NSW bus with safety door requirements

Moving the business forward

This extra time has been used wisely, with Scott’s team already implementing a raft of advancements for the business, including:

  • Consumer shop front: Enabling end-users to buy directly from the SGESCO-MAX website, via Wiise Shopify connector.
  • Supplier connection: Directly between Wiise and Continental (one of SGESCO-MAX’s biggest suppliers), enabling staff to purchase stock directly from within Wiise.
  • Real-time capacity planning: Enabling the company’s manufacturing team leader to see utilisation, forecast how many jobs can be taken on and their profitability to the business.
  • Complete accessibility: From any device and any location via a cloud-based ERP. If Scott or any of his team need to travel or work from home, there is minimal impact to the business.
  • New range of kits: That can be sold to customers – a result of being able to better manage inventory to create assemblies and sub-assemblies.
Anti rollaway clean away trucks for waste management

The payoff

Faster processes

With automated, digitised processes, fornightly finance tasks – from payroll to reporting – are now completed in a fraction of the time, enabling the team to focus on strategic projects.

Inventory management

Tracking inventory and costs has never been easier, with multi-level bills of materials enabling teams to manage inventory details, including sub-assemblies and components.

Capacity planning

By setting the production capacities for different resources, team leaders can see accurate utilisation and plan ahead and commit to larger customer orders with confidence.

“Wiise offered the whole Microsoft eco-system in single a platform that we could build on, which was hugely valuable. We've been able to add-on tools like Power BI reporting and Shopify, which we couldn't have achieved previously, as a business.”

Scott Macpherson, Managing Director at SGECSCO-MAX

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