TrackAbout Transforms Tracking for Advanced Welding & Industrial Supply

“I grew up in this business,” says John Brewer, President of Advanced Welding & Industrial Supply LLC. “My father worked in the welding supply business with another firm years ago and I guess I was adopted into that, and it kind of got in my blood.”

 

Together, they founded AWIS in 1995, with Brewer taking over after his father’s retirement a few years ago. The business now boasts a five-strong team, has three delivery trucks, and supplies 4,000-5,000 gas cylinders to its customers.

 

Q: Why was effective asset management so important to you and your business? 

Even from an early age, the importance of effective asset management was not lost on Brewer.

“I can remember growing up as a teenager, going to the main office of where I was working and there was just so much talk about cylinders, demurrage, and rental charges. And that just impressed on me the need to have a good record of your cylinders as we started our business,” he says.

 

Q: What challenges did AWIS face before adopting TrackAbout?

In the early days, AWIS relied on fairly primitive tracking that required lots of math and paperwork. Back then, all its returnable cylinders were managed the old-fashioned way using paper and a calculator, which was a tough ask, he admits.

“I thought at that time we had a really good record system. TrackAbout proved that to be wrong,” says Brewer. “The old method would take nearly a day-and-a-half to two days of just doing math on the daily rental account. I just didn't have enough fingers to count with and deal with all that. We knew there had to be a better solution that would give us better real-time information.”

 

Q: How did AWIS discover TrackAbout?

A meeting with one of TrackAbout’s team members in 2018 helped him realize that its software would be a perfect fit and significantly improve his workflow, seamlessly working alongside the business’ existing QuickBooks Enterprise Solutions installation.

TrackAbout was implemented not long after in 2019, and Brewer admits the company has never looked back.

 

Q: What was the immediate impact of TrackAbout on AWIS?

The positive impact of the new software was felt almost immediately, he says.

Previously, cylinders could often go astray, and it proved difficult to keep track of who had them at any one time and where they were.

“TrackAbout alleviated that problem,” says Brewer. “Anyone in our industry that has dealt with cylinders understands it can be a nightmare, and so much more now with the cost of those cylinders. You’re having to deal with this daily – where they are, their maintenance, and their location.”

 

Q: How did TrackAbout improve operations for AWIS and its customers?

By digitizing the entire process, TrackAbout not only cut out all the paperwork and manual calculations, saving an inordinate amount of time and effort, but it also resulted in more happy customers.

He points to one example where staff from a local school had asked him for additional support during a state audit as they needed help accounting for some of their gas cylinders.

Schools often use helium, oxygen, and acetylene for maintenance or in their classrooms for projects and this particular school had various cylinders onsite, he says. Some of these had been purchased over the years, while others were leased from AWIS.

“We were able to distinguish the cylinders that they owned outright, the cylinders that we were leasing to them, and the cylinders that we were renting to them daily – and give them a complete and concise report,” he says. “After that report went through with the state, the state auditor said he'd never seen as thorough of a report on the cylinders as he did with their district. And it was because of TrackAbout. It's fair to say the software has transformed the way the business operates," he says.

“When you can trace an invoice to the exact delivery time, pinpoint the precise drop-off location on Google Maps, and connect it all—the date, the hour, the invoice, the salesperson, and the customer who signed it—you eliminate all the guesswork entirely."

 

Q: What was the onboarding experience like?

Right from the outset, the help and support from TrackAbout has been excellent, continues Brewer. Even the set-up and onboarding process was simple, with TrackAbout available throughout. AWIS was provided comprehensive demos and onsite walkthroughs to demonstrate how the system worked and within weeks, its team were out on their routes, scanning items in and out using their phones.

 

Q: What is your advice to others in the industry?

“Lessen the headache of worrying about your assets,” says Brewer. “We can accurately track the cylinders at every stage of their journey—whether at a testing facility, a fill plant, a painting facility, with the customer, or on one of our trucks." 

“Getting TrackAbout into our system was the best money this company has spent, period.”

 

About Advanced Welding & Industrial Supply 

Advanced Welding & Industrial Supply is a family-owned business based out of Greenville, Mississippi. For three decades, AWIS has supplied gas cylinders to customers within a 75-mile radius of its headquarters, including schools, restaurants, factories, medical facilities, and even individuals doing their own welding or home maintenance.