In industrial settings, machines are crucial to the efficient production of goods on a mass scale. Pieces of equipment such as injection molding machines, industrial blowers, steel stamping presses, industrial fans, and industrial ovens help speed up processes that would otherwise take exponentially longer to complete, with possibly lower quality. Therefore, in these industrial settings, keeping these machines working properly is the key to success. However, these machines are often dated and past their warranty periods, meaning that if they break down, the companies that sell them will no longer support repairs. This is where Control System Labs comes in.
Control System Labs, based in Buffalo, New York, repairs the industrial electronic controls that run these machines in industrial settings. The company receives broken or malfunctioning electronic control panels from its customers, troubleshoots them to identify the problem at hand, then repairs them and ships them back to the original owners. Ed Bartle founded Control System Labs in 1970 as a small repair shop, evolving over the years as technology and electronics changed. He eventually sold the company in 2015 to Gary Fredricks and his partner Ed Bialek, who have been running the business ever since.
Since his acquisition of the company, President Gary Fredricks explains that the team at Control System Labs has continued to grow, as has its need for software to manage business operations. After struggling with their previous system, the company turned to Odoo for a comprehensive software solution.
Gary Fredricks and Ed Bialek
Pre-Odoo overload: the struggles of outdated systems
Starting around 1990, founder Ed Bartle used a homegrown database built on top of a software system called Alpha Five to manage business operations, in addition to Quickbooks for accounting and various spreadsheets for keeping track of data. Gary explains that a big pain point with this previous system was the loose connection between the systems and the complete lack of an inventory management system.
But perhaps the biggest problem the company faced daily with its old system was a lack of data integrity. Gary recounts that when Control System Labs grew from 10 to 25 users, the data in its database began corrupting frequently, as often as once a week, which tremendously impacted the efficiency and quality of the company’s work process. Things such as sales orders and information were getting lost or deleted. The database itself would crash close to three times a day and have to be restarted in order to work again properly. This, he says, was the final straw and the moment he realized the company needed a new software system to manage the backend of the business.
“The Alpha system was clearly unscalable; it had no future.”
It became clear that Gary would have to find a new business management software if the company were to continue growing. While he knew that changing systems would be expensive and require a lot of effort, he also knew it was necessary for the company’s continuing success. He began exploring alternative solutions, researching and considering up to 60 software options before narrowing the list down to 10 contenders. After further research, Gary whittled it down to a top three, and at the time, Odoo wasn’t on that list. He explains that back then, Odoo was in its earlier days and possibly not ready to handle the needs that Control System Labs had. Of the top three choices he was considering - including Infor and Epicore manufacturing ERPs - he got final estimates for the cost of each system and realized the company simply couldn’t afford any of the options at hand. He decided to table the project of changing business software until the company was more financially prepared.
Around a year or two later, the file corruption issue was only getting worse, and so Gary decided it was time to refresh the search for new business software. When the company took another look at Odoo, it realized Odoo had made improvements to its software, significantly increased its user audience, and even opened an office location in Buffalo– the company’s hometown. All of these factors played a part in Odoo becoming Control System Labs’ #1 choice.
A big feature that put Odoo above other manufacturing-specific ERPs that Control System Labs was looking at was Odoo’s ability to be customized to the needs of the company’s unique repair process. Gary explains that most manufacturing ERPs had a repair model that expected a company to be repairing something that it had manufactured itself, meaning that it already had a part number and serial number in its system attached to the broken or faulty products it was receiving from customers. However, Control System Labs received broken items to repair that it had never seen or dealt with before:
Everybody said, ‘You can’t receive something you don’t have a part number for, it’s impossible.’ Well, we need to receive something that we don’t have a part number for! So, there’s some things that everybody else had said, ‘You want to do what?’
With all of this in mind, and with Odoo’s fairly competitive pricing, Gary felt as though Odoo was the solution that best addressed the company’s requirements. Control System Labs worked with Odoo Partner Bista Solutions to set up and implement Odoo, working very closely with the partner to customize its database to help manage its repair process from start to finish. Gary states that the company couldn’t have done the implementation without Bista, and that the combination of support from both their on-shore team and off-shore team, as well as their responsiveness, was critical to the success of the transition.
“Their guidance was super valuable.”
Control System Labs intentionally rolled out Odoo slowly, making sure each module worked the way the company wanted it to before turning its attention to the next. Gary says this process was the key to the implementation's success and relative smoothness compared to others he’s been a part of.
Post-Odoo repairs and efficiency rewired
Control System Labs has been live with Odoo since late 2022, and the ERP system has made a tremendous impact on the company’s daily operations. Gary explains that the overall integrated nature of Odoo has been extremely beneficial, with the company having everything in a “single pane of glass.” Data retrieval and reporting capabilities have also greatly improved with Odoo, particularly for Gary as President and for others in upper management:
The data analysis, data availability, and having reporting capabilities built in has really helped us from a management standpoint make better decisions. Our availability to data is 50 times better than it was previously.
He points out that the customer portal is great, with customers receiving automatic push notifications for things such as tracking the products they’ve sent in for repairs. When it comes to the repairs themselves and the benefits of Odoo for Control System Labs’ technicians, Gary says that the database of information the company now has with Odoo has been extremely helpful. Repairs on specific products are logged in Odoo so that moving forward, if a technician comes across a repair for the same product, they can look back in Odoo and see what the problem was, what the symptoms were, and what parts were replaced. This log of data helps to streamline repairs in the future.
For a company with a unique workflow and repair process, Odoo’s adaptability and the oversight it has provided have made a night and day difference for Control System Labs. While Gary explains that there are always things he thinks can be improved and possibilities that are untapped in Odoo’s software, the switch over to the ERP solution has been a positive one. Rather than wasting time and energy dealing with data corruption and crashing platforms, the repair company now has streamlined operations with Odoo. Control System Labs is now better prepared to continue growing and expanding its business with Odoo on its side.
Location/Region: Buffalo, New York
Industry: Electronic repairs
Apps implemented: Accounting, Inventory, Project, Sales, Purchase
Number of users: 28
Company size: 28
Hosting type: On-premise
In industrial settings, machines are crucial to the efficient production of goods on a mass scale. Pieces of equipment such as injection molding machines, industrial blowers, steel stamping presses, industrial fans, and industrial ovens help speed up processes that would otherwise take exponentially longer to complete, with possibly lower quality. Therefore, in these industrial settings, keeping these machines working properly is the key to success. However, these machines are often dated and past their warranty periods, meaning that if they break down, the companies that sell them will no longer support repairs. This is where Control System Labs comes in.
Control System Labs, based in Buffalo, New York, repairs the industrial electronic controls that run these machines in industrial settings. The company receives broken or malfunctioning electronic control panels from its customers, troubleshoots them to identify the problem at hand, then repairs them and ships them back to the original owners. Ed Bartle founded Control System Labs in 1970 as a small repair shop, evolving over the years as technology and electronics changed. He eventually sold the company in 2015 to Gary Fredricks and his partner Ed Bialek, who have been running the business ever since.
Since his acquisition of the company, President Gary Fredricks explains that the team at Control System Labs has continued to grow, as has its need for software to manage business operations. After struggling with their previous system, the company turned to Odoo for a comprehensive software solution.
Gary Fredricks and Ed Bialek
Pre-Odoo overload: the struggles of outdated systems
Starting around 1990, founder Ed Bartle used a homegrown database built on top of a software system called Alpha Five to manage business operations, in addition to Quickbooks for accounting and various spreadsheets for keeping track of data. Gary explains that a big pain point with this previous system was the loose connection between the systems and the complete lack of an inventory management system.
But perhaps the biggest problem the company faced daily with its old system was a lack of data integrity. Gary recounts that when Control System Labs grew from 10 to 25 users, the data in its database began corrupting frequently, as often as once a week, which tremendously impacted the efficiency and quality of the company’s work process. Things such as sales orders and information were getting lost or deleted. The database itself would crash close to three times a day and have to be restarted in order to work again properly. This, he says, was the final straw and the moment he realized the company needed a new software system to manage the backend of the business.
“The Alpha system was clearly unscalable; it had no future.”
It became clear that Gary would have to find a new business management software if the company were to continue growing. While he knew that changing systems would be expensive and require a lot of effort, he also knew it was necessary for the company’s continuing success. He began exploring alternative solutions, researching and considering up to 60 software options before narrowing the list down to 10 contenders. After further research, Gary whittled it down to a top three, and at the time, Odoo wasn’t on that list. He explains that back then, Odoo was in its earlier days and possibly not ready to handle the needs that Control System Labs had. Of the top three choices he was considering - including Infor and Epicore manufacturing ERPs - he got final estimates for the cost of each system and realized the company simply couldn’t afford any of the options at hand. He decided to table the project of changing business software until the company was more financially prepared.
Around a year or two later, the file corruption issue was only getting worse, and so Gary decided it was time to refresh the search for new business software. When the company took another look at Odoo, it realized Odoo had made improvements to its software, significantly increased its user audience, and even opened an office location in Buffalo– the company’s hometown. All of these factors played a part in Odoo becoming Control System Labs’ #1 choice.
A big feature that put Odoo above other manufacturing-specific ERPs that Control System Labs was looking at was Odoo’s ability to be customized to the needs of the company’s unique repair process. Gary explains that most manufacturing ERPs had a repair model that expected a company to be repairing something that it had manufactured itself, meaning that it already had a part number and serial number in its system attached to the broken or faulty products it was receiving from customers. However, Control System Labs received broken items to repair that it had never seen or dealt with before:
With all of this in mind, and with Odoo’s fairly competitive pricing, Gary felt as though Odoo was the solution that best addressed the company’s requirements. Control System Labs worked with Odoo Partner Bista Solutions to set up and implement Odoo, working very closely with the partner to customize its database to help manage its repair process from start to finish. Gary states that the company couldn’t have done the implementation without Bista, and that the combination of support from both their on-shore team and off-shore team, as well as their responsiveness, was critical to the success of the transition.
“Their guidance was super valuable.”
Control System Labs intentionally rolled out Odoo slowly, making sure each module worked the way the company wanted it to before turning its attention to the next. Gary says this process was the key to the implementation's success and relative smoothness compared to others he’s been a part of.
Post-Odoo repairs and efficiency rewired
Control System Labs has been live with Odoo since late 2022, and the ERP system has made a tremendous impact on the company’s daily operations. Gary explains that the overall integrated nature of Odoo has been extremely beneficial, with the company having everything in a “single pane of glass.” Data retrieval and reporting capabilities have also greatly improved with Odoo, particularly for Gary as President and for others in upper management:
He points out that the customer portal is great, with customers receiving automatic push notifications for things such as tracking the products they’ve sent in for repairs. When it comes to the repairs themselves and the benefits of Odoo for Control System Labs’ technicians, Gary says that the database of information the company now has with Odoo has been extremely helpful. Repairs on specific products are logged in Odoo so that moving forward, if a technician comes across a repair for the same product, they can look back in Odoo and see what the problem was, what the symptoms were, and what parts were replaced. This log of data helps to streamline repairs in the future.
For a company with a unique workflow and repair process, Odoo’s adaptability and the oversight it has provided have made a night and day difference for Control System Labs. While Gary explains that there are always things he thinks can be improved and possibilities that are untapped in Odoo’s software, the switch over to the ERP solution has been a positive one. Rather than wasting time and energy dealing with data corruption and crashing platforms, the repair company now has streamlined operations with Odoo. Control System Labs is now better prepared to continue growing and expanding its business with Odoo on its side.