The Segex group is a Paris-based group of companies which hire non-operated building equipment, agricultural equipment and cars to urban outfitters and town planners. It was created in 1969 and has a turnover of 120 million Euros.
Due to the large number of internal hires taking place across the 14 subsidiaries, the company was looking for a new way to centralise these and purchase new software which would streamline the process. As a consequence, Segex Materiels was set up as an independent Segex group company to manage this process.
The Challenge
Initially, the Segex Materiels team was using a bespoke editing tool to manage the extensive number of hire contracts across the Segex group. This solution was fine initially, but the IT team soon decided that they needed more powerful software that would allow them to manage all their hire requirements, which included the hire of their own machines and equipment as well as equipment hired in from external suppliers (internal hire).
David Bessy, Project Manager for the new installation and his team, looked at various solutions on the market having received a number of tenders from potential suppliers. The software would need to manage the planning and scheduling of all their hires, as well as invoicing, the administration of their spare parts and depreciation for a whole range of construction equipment.
The Solution
After investigating various solutions on the market, the team finally decided on MCS-rm hire software, from rental software management specialists, MCS. They found it to be the most configurable and flexible software on the market, and is a Windows-based solution. They also liked the rehire module, which improved the management of their rehire process from start to finish.
The rehire module includes the option to load supplier prices, saving Segex Materiels a lot of time and enabling them to quickly and efficiently select items with the corresponding hire prices. The software allows them to enter the respective delivery address of either their site or the customer’s. Other custom software developments created specially for Segex Materiels include the listing of all their supplier rehire invoices to optimise matching and a specific rehire button within the hire contract that enables them to search for a piece of equipment not listed in their inventory. This displays a list of suppliers from whom they can hire the relevant piece of equipment and shows equipment and prices, resulting in huge time savings when searching for the relevant item.
The system generates a purchase order to the supplier which can be despatched via an email and creates a hire code enabling the user to track the piece of equipment in the system. Segex Materiels can then produce a summary of the costs and income relating to the equipment item and the customer can be invoiced.
The Benefits
Previously, each transaction performed took a few minutes to complete and the system was not always reliable, meaning entries often needed to be checked.
With MCS-rm, the process of entering data and reporting and invoicing was greatly speeded up and made more accurate. Reporting, previously done in Excel, has now been automated in MCS-rm and extensive reports on the whereabouts of equipment can be produced at the touch of a button. Reports can also be produced on machines which have gone into the workshop and then easily recharged to the respective subsidiary. Spare parts management have been automated so that maintenance charges can be easily and clearly tracked. Invoicing has also become a simple task, as Segex Materiels`s administrative team can now produce monthly invoices for all subsidiaries.
Mr Coubrun, Manager at Segex Materiels, and who works with the new software, commented, “MCS-rm is intuitive. The fact that it is Windows-based means our employees find it easy to use and this reduces our training costs.”
David Bessy added “Speed is the main advantage that MCS-rm gives us when managing our internal hires, but we now also have a much more reliable product to manage our cross-group rental park.”
The Future
Segex Materiels is now looking to extend MCS-rm to include the Customer Web Portal (CWP). Currently hire requests within the Segex group are made by phone. The CWP will allow staff of the group to hire machines and equipment, clearly saving the group a lot of human resource time. It will help the company increase efficiency and productivity, reduce errors, save time and reduce costs.
To find out how MCS-rm could help your business, call us on +27 (0)11 083 7530 or use our enquiry form.
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