How Southern Electric Corporation’s tool department is saving 30+ hours a month on purchasing

Summary

Southern Electric Corporation runs more than 100 crews that build and restore high-voltage power lines across the Southeast. For years its tool department ran purchasing on paper. Buyers guessed at part numbers, quantities got forgotten, and when upper management asked what something had cost six months earlier, nobody could answer.

Tool manager Samuel Kupihe rebuilt the process with inFlow Inventory. With the ability to store SKUs and pricing for multiple vendors under a single manufacturer record, ordering became a simple matter of comparing options, clicking items, and sending purchase orders. Kupihe now places a full month of tool orders, worth roughly 250,000 USD, without ever leaving inFlow — saving himself 30+ hours of work each month.

Guessing at part numbers and order history

Southern Electric Corporation has been in the electrical construction business since 1985. Storm restoration work means crews mobilize fast and need tools now, from whichever supplier can get them there. The tool department sits at the center of that flow. For years, it ran on a pen and paper system that worked in the short-term, but created issues down the road.

“Nobody kept accurate accounts of ordering and receiving,” explained Tool Manager, Samuel Kupihe. “People would guess at part numbers and quantities and forget what they had ordered or even how many.”

Then the questions would arrive from management. “Upper management would ask when we bought something and how much it cost the company, six months after the fact,” Kupihe shared. “We just didn’t have that information readily available for them. There was no accountability to the orders that were placed and what was actually checked in after receiving.”

Now that they use inFlow, it only takes a minute to look up any records of purchases, received and open orders.

A $250,000 order, placed with a few clicks

Utility contractors rarely buy the same part from the same supplier twice in a row. Availability shifts, prices change, and during storm work the crew needs the item today from whoever has it on the shelf.

That creates a problem for many inventory systems, as the same physical part carries a different SKU at every distributor. Ordering means turning catalog pages and calling suppliers to confirm what a part number actually refers to. With inFlow Kupihe can skip that headache.

Kupihe built inFlow Inventory to hold all of it against a single manufacturer record: every vendor who sells the part, each of their SKUs, and each of their prices.

“I’ve set us up in inFlow so that we have a single manufacturer record that holds every vendor who sells that part, their pricing, product information, and even their SKUs,” he explained. “I can compare what works best for me at that specific time.”

Every purchase order now carries lead times, tax, and freight alongside the price. When upper management asks what something cost and when it landed, the answer is only a few clicks away.

“In a busy month, inFlow saves me more than 30 hours of work,” Kupihe continued. “For example, last month I placed orders for over 250,000 USD worth of tools. The manufacturer information I entered is already in the system, along with vendor pricing. I just clicked the items and amounts, shot out an email, and I was done. No catalog page turning, no calling about what the description of the tools was. Straightforward click and ship.”

No more guessed part numbers or duplicate POs

Under the old system, mistakes were the rule rather than the exception. Part numbers were guesses, quantities were approximations, and there was nothing to check those numbers against.

Most of that has been designed out. Every product record now carries its manufacturer, vendors, SKUs, and pricing, so placing an order is a matter of selection rather than recall. inFlow Inventory also won’t allow the same purchase order number to be used twice, which closes off duplicate ordering — the costliest mistake in a purchasing workflow, and the easiest one to make when several crews need the same tools in the same week.

“The only errors that occur now are the occasional human error of not numbering the POs correctly,” said Kupihe. 

What’s left is the ordinary work of running a tool department, with a full account behind it: what was ordered, from whom, at what price, and when it arrived.

“inFlow is 1000% worth it,” Kupihe added. “It’s efficient, accurate, and gives us the ability to look back at what was ordered and the amounts. I have streamlined everything with purchasing since taking over this position, and it has made me a pillar of the company.”