ABS Group, Inc in Quebec, Canada automated with ULIMS Civil Engineering

Founded in 1993, ABS Group, Inc. operates in the areas of geotechnical engineering materials, environment, applied geology and civil engineering expertise.

In 2012, the company management set a goal of further customer service improvement. Their current enterprise automation tools no longer met the requirements set by their rapidly evolving business, hindering the efficiency of employee efforts. A decision was made to migrate to a modern, more powerful automation tool.

After a thorough study of lab automation solutions provided by various vendors, the company management selected ULIMS Civil Engineering, a software solution based on 1C:Enterprise platform, developed by Valmax Solutions (First BIT Canada Company), Montreal, Canada.

Valmax Solutions was required to solve a set of complex tasks, such as the following:

·         Revise and optimize ABS Group business processes

·         Organize unified data environment for 9 company offices in various parts of Quebec

·         Provide real-time data exchange with the company’s mobile labs

·         Perform integration with the customer’s accounting software

Valmax Solutions specialists successfully resolved all of these tasks.

To ensure smooth introduction of new data environment into ABS Group activity, it was decided to break the process into stages. The company staff started using the new tool in March, 2012. In October, 2013 the system was fully deployed and running.

The following business processes were automated:

·         CRM

·         Appointment scheduling

·         Sample management

·         Inventory and equipment management

·         Human resources and workload management

·         Finances

·         Time tracking

·         Laboratory administration module

·         Notification emails and dashboards

The ULIMS Civil Engineering solution based on 1C:Enterprise platform supports parallel work of 250 users, including mobile users. It uses the MS SQL Server DBMS.

The solution deployment resulted in reducing time required for performing specific tasks up to 70%, with the number of employee errors reduced by 30%.

Mr. Jean-Philippe Couture , the quality director at ABS Group and the supervisor of the deployment project, commented the project as follows: "I was pleasantly surprised by the professional level of Valmax Solutions (First BIT Canada) specialists involved in the project. Unlike other deployments of enterprise management systems that I supervised, the expert system-wide approach of our partners gave us space for focusing on our tasks and goals instead of fighting technological problems."

Technological deployment parameters

Deployment time: January, 2012–October, 2013

City: Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

1C:Enterprise version: 8.2

Applied solution: ULIMS Civil Engineering (a custom solution)

Run mode: client/server, Windows, thin client, web client, MS SQL

Number of users: 250 (including mobile users)

Business area: civil engineering

About ABS Group, Inc.

The company was founded in 1993. More than 170 highly qualified employees (engineers, geologists, technicians and administrative staff) provide customer services, focusing on the individual needs of each customer and on helping customers to complete their projects. The corporate mission of ABS Group is providing a full set of services in each of its business areas, regardless of work load and contract size.

Website: www.groupeabs.com

About Valmax Solutions

Valmax Solutions (since 2012 is a part of First BIT Canada Company) is a software development company founded and located in Montréal, Canada. As an official partner of 1C Company, Valmax has successfully integrated many projects in different fields: commerce, production, logistics, education and more. The company uses innovative ideas and relies on rich experience in software integration in order to provide the best service to the customers. Valmax Solutions policy is in believing that their products help companies to grow and become the best-run businesses.