Case Studies
New England Lead Burning Company (NELCO)
NELCO, a global leader in radiation shielding with 90+ years of expertise across manufacturing, construction, and field services, replaced fragmented legacy systems with unified NetSuite and Appficiency solutions, achieving real time WIP tracking, automated multi-jurisdiction tax compliance, and consolidated financial visibility across four distinct business divisions.
Challenges Before NetSuite
For project and manufacturing-driven businesses like NELCO, success depends on having complete visibility into costs, projects, and resources at all times. As NELCO expanded globally and diversified its offerings, the company’s legacy systems were no longer keeping pace with its growth. Operating across multiple industries including manufacturing, construction, field services, and design meant each division required specialized tools. Over time, this led to a patchwork of separate systems that made processes and data harder to unify. For a business managing high-value, highly technical projects, NELCO needed a platform that could bring all operations together without sacrificing the flexibility required by each line of business. Key challenges included:
Multiple ERPs and Software Solutions across divisions
Each line of business relied on a different system: Sage 300 for finance, Made2Manage for manufacturing, MobiWorks for field ticketing, Ceridian for payroll, and Concur for expenses. While these systems served their purpose individually, the lack of integration meant teams often relied on spreadsheets to reconcile data and produce consolidated reports.
Siloed Business Units Limiting Collaboration
NELCO had four distinct business lines, each operating with its own workflows and reporting standards. Data was fragmented across the organization, making it harder to collaborate across divisions and slowing down leadership’s ability to see the complete financial picture.
Manual costing & WIP tracking
Labor costing was complex with multiple rate structures by division. Legacy systems required manual workarounds to manage this complexity, making it difficult to maintain timely, accurate project costing. Work-in-progress (WIP) tracking was also limited, with systems unable to provide the level of detail NELCO required for materials, labor, overhead, and temporary labor.
Complex Global Tax Compliance Requirements
Operating globally meant navigating complex sales and use tax requirements. Taxes needed to be calculated at the project location level and sometimes adjusted by project type or cost category. Out-of-the-box ERP functionality and even Avalara’s standard setup could not fully address these scenarios.
Delayed Financial Reporting and Limited Real-Time Visibility
With each division working independently, financial consolidation required manual reconciliation across multiple systems. Closing the books could take up to 15 days, delaying insights that were critical for project forecasting and strategic planning.
“NELCO operates across multiple industries—manufacturing, construction, field services, and design. Trying to manage each with its own system wasn’t scalable. We needed one ERP that could do it all.”
— Scott Bloemen , CFO, NELCO
Implementation Journey
Seamless NetSuite Integrations for Payroll, Projects, and Expenses
Integration was a top priority for NELCO, given its reliance on multiple systems for payroll, expenses, and vendor management. Appficiency delivered seamless integrations across NetSuite, Concur, and Dayforce, automating time tracking, payroll sync, expense reporting, and vendor transactions. These flows eliminated manual data entry, ensured real-time job costing, and gave NELCO a single source of truth across operations.
Accurate WIP & Labor Costing with Appficiency’s NetSuite Customization
Accurately tracking labor and overhead was essential for NELCO’s complex projects, Standard NetSuite features couldn’t fully support this, so Appficiency built a custom costing engine to automate these calculations. A tailored WIP solution was also implemented to match NELCO’s legacy structure, modernizing their process with real-time accuracy and automation.
Ensuring Multi-Jurisdiction Tax Compliance with Avalara & NetSuite
Tax compliance was another major challenge. NELCO’s projects often span multiple geographies, each with unique sales and use tax rules.
To solve this, Appficiency delivered a customized Avalara integration, enabling tax to be calculated at the project address level while factoring in both project type and cost type. This ensured that even under all scenarios, taxes were calculated correctly and flowed seamlessly into project costing.
The result was a system that not only maintained compliance across jurisdictions but also protected margins by ensuring tax accuracy on every project.
One Platform, Unified Teams
With NetSuite acting as a centralized system, departments now work with shared, up-to-date information. Procurement, finance, and project teams collaborate more effectively, using one platform to manage the full project lifecycle from estimate to invoice.
Looking Ahead
With NetSuite now at the core of its operations, NELCO is focused on scaling without adding unnecessary overhead. The new ERP provides the automation and visibility needed to accelerate growth across its diverse business lines. As Scott, CFO, noted: “It needs to be scalable. We have aggressive growth plans. We’re growing very fast, and I want the system to do the work.”
By partnering with Appficiency, NELCO has a foundation built not just for today’s challenges, but for future expansion, ensuring the company continues to deliver world-class medical shielding solutions and industrial products on a global stage.
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