Jobscope LLC
P.O. Box 6767
Greenville, SC 29606
phone: 1-800-443-5794
fax: 1-864-458-3160
email:
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America Crane & Equipment Corporation
Jobscope® Software
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Visibility of Operational Performance Critical for Custom Crane and Hoist Manufacturer
American Crane & Equipment Corporation (ACECO) is a privately held international material handling company located in Southeastern Pennsylvania, USA. As a recognized leader in the design and manufacture of electric overhead traveling cranes and wire rope hoists, American Crane offers equipment for a wide variety of applications up to 300 ton capacity. The company’s Specialized Crane Division has designed and manufactured many highly complex crane systems for operation in Nuclear Power Plants, Department of Energy Laboratories and Rocket Launch Facilities. Specializing in custom manufactured crane and hoist solutions that meet unique customer needs defines the American Crane business. A highly skilled and well-staffed engineering department coupled with a large, modernly equipped manufacturing facility allows American Crane to deliver turnkey services. Professional installation, start-up and on-going maintenance services are supplied by the company’s field services department. Through all manufacturing projects, the entire American Crane team focuses on providing the highest quality products at a competitive cost.
ETO Solution Replaces Legacy System
Managing and tracking these custom projects for accurate job costing is key to American Crane’s operations. A dated legacy system was once used for these purposes, but that system proved to be inadequate – failing to meet all of American Crane’s needs. The inability to produce useable data for analysis and reporting, along with a lack of system flexibility motivated the company to seek a better solution.  Karen Norheim, Vice President of IT and Marketing at American Crane, recalls the DOS-based legacy system saying, "There was no manipulative data. We had to use Microsoft Excel and manually key-in loads of information pertaining to each job. Not only was this labor intensive, but the costing reports were never completely accurate. It was frustrating having to depend on an insufficient system."
Recognizing that real-time cost information was highly important, American Crane began reviewing engineer-toorder systems that fit their business model. The answer came with JOBSCOPE which was designed as an ERP-level solution offering fully integrated functionality for all manufacturing and process operations. After seeing JOBSCOPE’s seamlessly integrated modules for cost control, materials planning, engineering, order entry, purchasing, labor collection, estimating, production control and financials, American Crane was convinced JOBSCOPE was the right solution.
Accurate, Real-Time Job Costing
The JOBSCOPE system is used to track time and costs related to every project from estimating to final customer delivery. Over 40 users depend on the system every day to track, manage and complete tasks critical to the specialized crane and material handling projects for American Crane’s customers. Because JOBSCOPE is made to accept custom design scenarios, American Crane is able to pull more accurate job costing data and create better reports than previously. Estimating is also more precise because past job information can easily be pulled, sorted and filtered to extract the data that is needed. JOBSCOPE is part of the process at every stage of a project addressing job management, purchasing, inventory and materials.
On the financial side, American Crane uses JOBSCOPE for all accounting functions in the company. This includes accounts payable, accounts receivable, balance sheets, in-house payroll, income statements, invoicing, cost sheets, cash flow statements and general ledgers.
Detailed general ledger activity that reflects current assets, liabilities, revenue and expense items is created monthly for management analysis. Balance sheets and income statements are derived from the general ledger to provide more detailed views of finances. Using JOBSCOPE to track all job costs, trial balances can be easily generated to serve as analysis tools of accounting activity to detect any financial errors. Departmental income statements provide cost break-downs in each department giving American Crane a true cost picture across numerous categories.
"With JOBSCOPE, we’ve been able to track all of our costs for any job,” says Linda Rohrbach, Office Manager for American Crane. “It is a great fit for job costing and every aspect of it is handled by JOBSCOPE. For us, it’s easy to see where we are at any time for any job."
For purchasing activity, JOBSCOPE tracks the entire process. As soon as purchase orders are received, they are entered into JOBSCOPE. Parts and materials received at American Crane’s shipping dock are immediately scanned into JOBSCOPE for job cost management. Labels are then printed, placed on the part and either stocked or assigned to a project using JOBSCOPE’s bill of materials functionality.
Reports and analysis are simple. Within JOBSCOPE, American Crane can easily see the dollar value of materials ordered, track vendor performance or view on-hand and received materials versus outstanding and open purchase orders. JOBSCOPE’s inventory management functionality allows American Crane to run valuation reports based on data in the system. Delivery time projections can then be made by analysis of project schedules and the availability of materials required to complete each stage of a special order.
The task of locating parts has also been made efficient through JOBSCOPE. Searching for parts and knowing where to find them by project or storage location is a simple procedure. With this level of functionality, JOBSCOPE gives American Crane visibility into all inventory areas and associated cost details. Plant shutdowns for inventory counts that once took a week have now been reduced to two days. And, at job completion, American Crane is able to look at all costs involved with a project at every stage.
"JOBSCOPE gives us complete job costing information which is critical to efficiently running our business," says Norheim. "Having immediate access to real-time cost information is key to our operations and future growth of the company. JOBSCOPE is made for ETO companies and that is exactly what we do."
With over 30 years industry experience, American Crane knows what it takes to provide quality workmanship and superior customer service. The company is committed to delivering the engineered-to-order crane and hoist solutions that meet the specialized needs of their customers. JOBSCOPE will continue to be counted on as the ETO system that helps the American Crane business grow.
Located in Greenville, South Carolina (US), Jobscope delivers a comprehensive ERP solution for engineer-toorder (ETO) and make-to-order (MTO) manufacturers; and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) businesses. For over 25 years, customer’s using JOBSCOPE® have improved on-time deliveries, materials management and inventories, data integrity, cost control, job reporting and communications between management, operations and finance.
Jobscope Corporation
355 Woodruff Road
Suite 212
Greenville, SC 29607
800.443.5794
For more information, visit www.Jobscope.com
For American Crane & Equipment Corporation, visit www.AmericanCrane.com |
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