ComCo Systems
Comco Systems, based in Lake Dallas Texas USA was founded in 1968. The company manufactures, installs and services a wide array of products for banking, pharmacy and retail businesses. The firm’s product line has expanded from material transport equipment to include electronic monitoring, security, and secure storage equipment.
Comco operates as a family of two firms, Comco Products Innovations (CPI) and Comco Systems. CPI designs & engineers, manufactures and distributes product in the US and internationally. Comco Systems installs and services complete security and material transport solutions. The Comco organization boasts an impressive customer list that includes Wal*Mart, CVS, and Wells Fargo Bank.
CPI operates using a complete manufacturing cycle including raw material / parts procurement, receiving & testing, subcontracting of subassemblies, in-house manufacturing, finished goods quality testing and release, warehousing & distribution.
Comco Systems installs complete systems and provides service & support to end customers. The firm manages field service staff and installation staff, both in-house and on the truck inventory, customer contracts, and provides spare parts and testing materials. In addition the firm has a robust return for overhaul (MRO) business.
The Comco group used 4 separate systems to manage its business, a financial system, shop floor and inventory system, a service management system, and a separate project tracking system for installations. The disconnected systems required duplicate data entry and made it very difficult for the staff to coordinate activities and ensure customer and contract data was shared. Management visibility was difficult to achieve as well. Reporting often had to be done outside the systems with a manual Excel process. A major gap for the executive team was the lack of a Customer Relationship Management and sales tracking tool.
Comco made the decision to adopt Odoo and use the VCloud9 team to help implement and support the system. The project was taken in 3 phases, Finance and CRM, Service & Projects, and Manufacturing Operations. The three phases were conducted over a 7 month period. The phased allowed the firm to start realizing benefits as early as possible and close a major gap, sales visibility, early on.
