Lantz Insulation has been providing high-quality insulation services for decades.
"Since the company was founded, we’ve been in the people business. Insulation is just a way to serve them." says Jerry Keith, Owner of Lantz Insulation.
The company prioritizes hiring skilled and dedicated individuals who share their values. This emphasis on quality workmanship has led to a loyal customer base and a reputation for excellence. And, because of their strong and positive company culture and their commitment to their values, many of Lantz’ technicians have been working there for 15 years or more.
“With insulation work, no one is going to know if we did our job well or not until it’s too late. So there always was and still is an integrity that is expected out of everyone in our company.”
As Lantz grew, Jerry turned some of his focus to improving how things are done operationally within the company. The business has always been healthy, but as an owner he didn’t always have the insight he wanted at the time that he wanted it.
“For a while, we would just meet with our accountant and then we’d adjust our rates if something was off. We’d try to dig into what we thought it could be, but there were a lot of unknowns.”
Lantz Insulation had already partnered with Koble and implemented parts of the ERP system, but due to a very limited network environment, they were only using the system for invoicing and payroll. They had yet to expand the system across their operations, so there was still a lot of time spent pulling paperwork from the filing cabinets.
“It was rough. Everything was handwritten as far as job sheets were concerned.”
In 2017, they decided it was time to take fuller advantage of the tools they had available with Koble. They upgraded their hardware from a single tower computer to a full-blown network environment and met with their Account Manager and a Consultant from Koble to work on bringing their operations more fully into their ERP system.
“Seeing what Koble had to offer and making improvements where they mattered most was huge for us. It turns over in morale, and it turns over in the bottom line, because now we’re able to bid more jobs, be on the road more, and take on more clients. It directly affected us in a good way.”
After their consultation, they began to move towards digitizing much of their job scheduling process; specifically, using the system to create their job sheets.
“At first it was painful, because before I had everything memorized and was very efficient at handwriting it. But the problem then was, as soon as someone changed something, I’d have to figure it out all over again and start over. So now with utilizing the materials list, even though it takes longer up front, it actually saves at least 20 to 40 minutes per job proposal because of how easy it is to input and track changes as they come up.”
Because they scaled their system to match the demands of their business, they were able to save over 20 hours a week on administrative tasks and get rid of 3 full filing cabinets of paperwork.
At the start, the simple usage of their ERP was what worked best for Lantz Insulation. But because they chose Koble, they had a system that could grow with them. When they needed additional tooling to support their growth they were able to implement those capabilities in a system and environment they were already familiar with, with a partner who already knew their business.
“We changed quite a few things that were pretty major. But when we did, we got it done in smaller steps and you almost didn’t notice it.”
Kelsey Stout is the Head of HR & Marketing at Koble. She loves helping people build strong and lasting businesses with meaningful work, the right systems in place, and a strong approach to culture. When not telling Koble stories, Kelsey can be found writing children's fiction, spending time with family, or playing the guitar (poorly but enthusiastically).
