For over 90 years, Smith and Long has been a leader in the electrical, mechanical, and engineering sectors, growing into one of Canada’s most respected multi-trade companies. With a strong presence in industries ranging from healthcare and education to industrial facilities and public infrastructure, Smith and Long has always focused on quality and service excellence.
As the company scaled, managing safety documentation across multiple job sites became increasingly challenging. To address these operational needs, Acumatica ERP and Corfix provided an integrated solution that helped streamline processes, eliminate paperwork, and elevate safety standards company-wide.
The Challenge: Paperwork Overload and Safety Compliance
Before adopting Corfix, Smith and Long struggled with inconsistent safety documentation processes across its growing number of job sites. The reliance on paper-based forms created inefficiencies and risks of lost paperwork. Not only would that create headaches for compliance and productivity, it could prove a barrier to the company’s pursuit of the Certificate of Recognition (COR) accreditation.
Robert Riopelle, President and CEO of Smith and Long, reflected on the company’s previous state:
“We had different teams doing it in different ways—there was no standardization. Maybe previously, it wasn’t such a big deal. But as we’ve grown into a much bigger company, we needed a way to scalably manage our safety paperwork.”
Lack of consistency in documentation makes internal auditing difficult, and slows down critical processes, hindering any company’s ability to meet the necessary safety and compliance standards. With a professional background in technology, Riopelle was ideally suited to the project of digitizing Smith and Long’s processes to better support their continued growth.
The Solution: Integrating Acumatica ERP and Corfix
Smith and Long selected Acumatica’s cloud-based ERP, which provided a web-enabled platform for a distributed workforce and allowed them to “complete many different tasks from different areas and have better continuity in the whole business.”
The natural next step was to adopt a field-friendly software which would integrate with their ERP. As Riopelle explains, Corfix addressed a major pain point for fieldwork documentation:
“Corfix removed a lot of paperwork from the field. We had job action forms, job planning forms, incident reporting, and a lot of that was being recorded on paper. Now we can go right into the digital platform and avoid all that paperwork floating around, getting lost, and not making it back to the office.”
The combination of Acumatica and Corfix allowed Smith and Long to digitize its safety protocols, making it easier to manage and audit reports in real time across all their sites. This became crucial in their pursuit of COR accreditation, ensuring they could meet the required standards for documentation and safety.
The Journey to COR Certification
The Certificate of Recognition (COR) is a national safety certification designed to assess and improve an organization’s health and safety management systems. It’s a rigorous process that involves detailed audits, site inspections, and interviews with employees, all aimed at ensuring compliance with safety standards and regulations.
Robert Riopelle discussed the challenges of working towards COR certification:
“As we’re going for our COR accreditation, one of the important things is documentation and being able to audit what you’re doing and having those reserves to produce an incident report or show that you’ve done your proper reporting.”
The process is comprehensive, involving the successful completion of internal and external audits, which takes approximately 12-18 months. It also requires a commitment to ongoing safety improvements and diligent compliance tracking to prove that dedication to safety is being put into practice. Smith and Long is well on its way to securing this certification:
“It’s going well, and we’re getting close to becoming COR-certified. The bigger you get, the harder it is. But with the help of Corfix, we’re going to be able to get it, I hope, this year.”
Achieving COR certification not only improves workplace safety but also offers financial and competitive advantages. Certified organizations can benefit from reduced workers’ compensation premiums and often gain an edge in bidding for contracts.
The Results: Efficiency and Quick Adoption
Since integrating Acumatica and Corfix, Smith and Long has seen significant improvements in both operational efficiency and field safety management. Riopelle highlighted the benefits of automation and how it has improved their internal reporting:
“We have limited resources to collect and compile all this information. A lot of that’s been automated now, so we get more timely reporting to the upper levels, which has been very good.”
Not only did Corfix help streamline reporting, but the platform also proved easy to adopt by workers in the field. Because adoption is one of the top two concerns for companies (the other is the ROI for the cost of the software), the user-friendliness of the platform was a huge win for Smith and Long:
“With Corfix, it was intuitive, and it was easy, and the guys liked it, so they adopted it quickly.”
The shift to digital timecards and safety forms meant that workers could focus more on the job at hand, while ensuring safety protocols were always followed.
Conclusion: A Strong Endorsement
Riopelle is enthusiastic in his recommendation of Corfix to other companies, particularly those in the trades:
“It’s about keeping people safe. Anything that helps improve safety, we’ve got to get it out there. I definitely endorse and recommend Corfix to any company that’s looking to kind of improve their safety situation.”
By leveraging the power of Acumatica ERP and Corfix, Smith and Long has successfully navigated the complexities of managing safety documentation, while scaling their operations and improving safety across their job sites.