Quick and Responsive Service Helps Support Growth at Ashburton Contracting
Ashburton Contracting operates a number of civil contracting businesses including
roading, subdivisions, and drainage, as well as supportive operations such as transporting and road surfacing in Ashburton, Orari, Oamuru and the south of Christchurch. It also runs workshops which support the business internally and externally. Bonniface says that the company acquired two new workshops last year to expand the support arm of the business. As well, Ashburton has a ready-mix concrete plant and a utilities operation which manages free waters. Based in Ashburton on the South Island, the company employs about 130 people.
Ashburton received excellent service from the very start. Nimbus, Bonniface says, “worked with our people closely to provide an integrated solution and on day one give or take, we were good to go.”
In total, the time to complete integration was less than three months. Nimbus quickly customized their applications for Ashburton’s business processes. “That was one of the key benefits of Nimbus as that’s part of their ability to look at your existing business and integrate those business processes into Nimbus.”
During the past dozen years, Nimbus has proven over and over that its software is adaptable to Ashburton’s changing requirements.
“Nimbus Software is really robust. I’ve never really thought I need to look elsewhere. We’re very happy with the software, its technology, its ability to grow with you and its security in terms of users but more importantly in terms of up time and performance. Its integrity. And it comes down to the people that you work with as well.”
Rapid Parts Database Integration
Nimbus worked collaboratively with Ashburton to customize the user interface, create a database history, load the parts catalogue and pricing information so that they could operate as quickly as possible. The work to address all of the integration is ongoing, with Bonniface saying he continues to collaborate with Nimbus and Isuzu so that the information base and processing base are as accurate as possible.
Speedy Response to Shifting Regulations
“We said to Nimbus, ‘We need this by this date – it was a very short time, just a few days, and they organized it and set it all up for us.”
The Future
“My view is that we must use Nimbus for everything that we can, that we ensure we’re effectively using the database.”
Previously, plant monitoring as part of Ashburton’s utility tree water contract was all being done on bits of paper and spreadsheets. “We went to Nimbus and said we need somehow to capture and report on it. Nimbus came up with a solution using a product we could use to capture that information, which gets sent back to us and provides access to the local council as well.”
Nimbus Mobile Reports on KPIs from the Field
Looking ahead, there are also plans to integrate detailed information analysis based on the reporting capabilities of Nimbus. “There’s quite a lot of reports we have had Nimbus create and you know we came out with a way of handling some job reporting or job coding of invoices onto jobs using the system and it’s been really great.”
Bonniface explains that as Ashburton added to its businesses, “We made a lot of changes and modifications in things that suit us — reporting, how we process transactions, and Nimbus has been very quick to look at them, analyze, and produce a result.”
As Ashburton Contracting continues to grow, Bonniface is confident that Nimbus will be supporting that growth. “Back in 2008 we were probably doing $12 to $15 million turnover and our biggest year is $39 million. Nimbus has scaled with us.”
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