Location/Region: Auburn Hills, MI
Industry: Construction, Industrial
Apps implemented: Discuss, Knowledge, CRM, Sales, Accounting, Documents, Project, Timesheets, Website, Purchase, Inventory, Manufacturing, Quality, Sign, Expenses, Field Service, Planning, Helpdesk, eLearning, Surveys, Maintenance, PLM, Employees, Fleet, Approvals, Dashboards, Barcode, Data Cleaning, Repairs, Consolidation
Software Replaced: Quickbooks and in-house ERP system
Number of users: 450
Company size: 500
Hosting type: Dedicated Odoo.sh
Water is essential to life on Earth. For humans, water access and availability affect many facets of existence—from agriculture to flooding to construction. Moving water from one location to another is a daunting task that is not easily accomplished. This is why companies such as Mersino exist.
Mersino, based in Auburn Hills, Michigan, designs and executes projects to help customers with their groundwater control challenges. This can be anything from dewatering (pumping water out of one area and into another) to disaster recovery and flood control services. The company also manufactures water pumps, with 70-80% going into its own fleet for internal purposes and the other 20-30% being sold to outside customers. Mersino’s typical customers include municipalities, construction companies, and mines.
Founded in 1988 by Rod Mersino, the company has been a family-run business since the very beginning. While Mersino partnered with Kinderhook Industries, a private equity firm, in 2021, founder Rod’s son Gino continues to run the business as CEO. With over 35 years in business under its belt, Mersino has continued to achieve growth and success in recent years. With expanding operations, the company needed business software to support its needs. This is where Odoo comes in.
Dammed up: Mersino’s homemade ERP bottleneck
Prior to implementing Odoo, Mersino utilized a combination of Quickbooks for invoicing and an in-house designed ERP platform. This homemade ERP was created around 2000 by an IT technician the company hired to write custom software to meet its needs at the time. While the combination of the two platforms worked for a while, it was not able to keep up with Mersino’s continuous growth. Jay Marcotte, CIO at Mersino, explains that the in-house designed ERP system in particular was unpolished and slow, with functionalities needing to be done on the backend at the database level. There was no documentation, and, as he puts it, the software’s performance was becoming “catastrophic to the company.”
Perhaps the biggest test of the old system’s capabilities was Mersino’s expansion into 21 branches across the U.S. Not only was the homemade software not able to keep up with a growing number of users across state lines, but it also didn’t have the manufacturing infrastructure to support the company’s needs:
The limitations were becoming a bottleneck. As our manufacturing grew, the in-house developed ERP just had no MRP capabilities.
With this final straw, Mersino began exploring alternative solutions and was drawn to Odoo because of its functionalities, ease of use, attractive price point, and high level of customizability. Initially, Mersino was specifically interested in Odoo's accounting and manufacturing features. However, after their demo with Business Advisor Zach Hernandez, they recognized Odoo's full potential. Through various demos on manufacturing, procurement, projects, and accounting by Odoo's presales team, Mersino saw the system's value.
In the first phase, Odoo's internal Quickstart implementation team led the project, and within six months, Mersino successfully launched their accounting and manufacturing systems. This rapid implementation showcased Odoo's efficiency and solidified Mersino's decision to adopt the platform.
Flow state: Mersino’s operational harmony with Odoo
Today, Mersino has migrated its entire business over to Odoo, including its finances, manufacturing, repairs, field services, and sales processes. When Jay reflects on the most useful Odoo applications that have arguably made the biggest impact on the company’s operations, he names three: Accounting, Manufacturing, and Project.
Mersino’s accounting process, in particular, has been expedited: “Days to bill and days to collection have drastically improved.” Jay specifically appreciates the fact that Odoo’s Accounting module has users follow a process with drop-down selections, which has helped reduce errors when creating invoices for customers.
Odoo’s overall customizability has been one of the most beneficial aspects of Mersino’s software switch. The company has been working with Odoo Partner Captivea, and Jay says that the collaboration has been helpful in developing Odoo modules to fit Mersino’s specific needs.
In an overarching sense, Odoo’s integrated nature has been a huge positive for Mersino. Previously, the company’s in-house developed ERP and Quickbooks did not communicate with one another, opening up a gap for inaccurate information between the financial and operational sides of things. Having Odoo’s integration amongst applications has made the world of a difference in terms of cost control and profitability for the company.
Odoo’s software has supported Mersino as it has grown tremendously over the past few years. In 2021, the company had around 250 employees and made around $88 million in revenue. Today, with Odoo supporting the business’s day-to-day operations, Mersino has had the freed-up manpower and energy to grow to an employee base of over 500 employees and is on track to cross $200 million in revenue in 2025.
As Mersino sets its sights on continued growth, Odoo is equipped with functionality to adapt to and support the company’s ever-changing needs on the path to further success.
Pumping Up Performance: Mersino’s Odoo-Boosted Growth