Prism Electric goes all-in with cloud-based construction ERP : Field-Focused Platform Deployment Sets the Stage for Seamless Workflows and Future Expansion
With an eye on growth and improved technology-enabled workflows, Prism Electric, Inc., one of the largest electrical contractors in Texas, has selected the purpose-built CMiC construction management platform as its enterprise-wide system of choice.
Established in 1994 with five employees, Prism Electric has expanded in growth to 700+ employees with offices in Texas and Oklahoma. Prism Electric has a solid portfolio of successful projects ranging in size and complexity from simple, one-day projects to multi-million-dollar, technical projects. The business also includes a service maintenance division that has grown to handle all aspects of electrical construction to meet the customer’s needs, a one source stop to we provide clients with ongoing, 24-hour a day customer service.
With an eye on maintaining Prism’s growth momentum, the firm was ready to take on more, only to find its tools and workflows weren’t built for the increased demand. Leadership understood that to grow the company and meet new technical demands, the company needed to upgrade their systems.
Luke Harmon, Electrical Engineer with Prism Electric, Inc. charged with addressing the workflow issues, remarked, “We have a strategic plan to expand our market presence and take advantage of the strong Texas economy—and that means we have to have the tools to facilitate that growth.”
While not an IT intensive company, Prism Electric did have an on-premise ERP that was implemented about a decade before. “The problem,” continued Harmon, “was that our project teams didn’t use it. Instead, we created all sorts of workarounds with spreadsheets. We knew that was not an effective path forward.”
In 2020, Prism Electric hired a consultant, ERP Advisors, to help it navigate the cloud-based ERP selection process and find a construction-focused operations and job controls centric solution.
“We believed one of the significant shortcomings of our old ERP was that it was selected exclusively by accounting for accounting. Therefore, the decision didn’t have a tremendous amount of buy-in from our operations team,” explained Harmon. “So, we placed greater emphasis on the project management and field construction staff needs and made sure every group, especially operations, had a vote in the decision.”
‘Proving’ Functionality
To further assure buy-in, Harmon assembled an evaluation team made up of individuals from every department and business process within Prism Electric, from design to services. “We wrote a script of what we wanted to see and asked the ERP vendors to follow-it and ‘prove’ their functionality. The script went well beyond a sales pitch or technical demonstration. We wanted the ERP providers to prove out functionality in our workflows. In fact, the functionality was so important that we didn’t even start talking about pricing until we got down the road to that final decision,” he said.
While it did touch on payroll and HR, the script focused on job cost accounting and how project managers track project progress, including schedules and budgets. The script also focused on how that information rolls up to leadership to support decisions.
The team also learned about some capabilities that weren’t on their initial requirements list.
Harmon noted, “Once we checked to make sure CMiC could address all of our operational needs, we started looking at some of the solution’s other features. Our project managers really like using a construction productivity application for field markups, progress photos and issues tracking. We found that CMiC’s FIELD application has comparable capabilities with the advantage of connecting with all of our other project data.”
With evaluations complete, the Prism Electric selection came down to two choices. Harmon confirmed, “After a two-day final evaluation and score sheet assessment, it was a no brainer.”
Seamless Data Flows
Prism Electric moved to CMiC in January 2021. Those same individuals who were involved in the evaluation are also the champions and subject matter experts during implementation. Harmon expects the company to go live with the first phase in October 2021 and with the second phase by January 2022.
When asked about immediate ROI once the CMiC platform is live, Harmon pointed to the movement of data from one phase to the next. He said, “We work a lot in the design-assist project delivery procurements, where we’re involved early on in a project design. Having an integrated platform that collects and moves data from preconstruction to construction to handover and servicing will help us be a great partner for our customers. We want to be the contractor of choice and technology helps us get there. We’re going to go all in with CMiC.”
“Prism Electric is a leader in its market, and we are proud to be a key technology partner in their journey to realize their growth objectives over the coming years,” remarked Taz Adamjee, Director of Customer Success at CMiC.
About Prism Electric
Established in 1994, Garland, Texas-based Prism Electric is one of the largest electrical contractors, with offices across Texas and Oklahoma. The multi-million-dollar company has performed on high level projects in the commercial, manufacturing, industrial, institutional, healthcare, data centers and other high-tech industries. Prism also has one of the largest service departments in Texas that specializes in many facets, such aerial lighting, testing & commissioning, and an emergency service response. For more information, please visit www.prismelectric.com.
About CMiC
As an industry pioneer, CMiC delivers complete and unified ERP and FIELD solutions for construction and capital projects firms. CMiC’s powerful software transforms how firms optimize productivity, minimize risk and drive growth by planning and managing all financials, projects, resources, and content assets—from a Single Database Platform™. With customers throughout North America, CMiC serves one-quarter of ENR’s Top 400 Contractors and hundreds of small and mid-sized construction firms, from general and specialty contractors to heavy/highway and project owners. For more information, please visit www.cmicglobal.com.
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