Fire Protection Podcast: Purpose-Built ERP with Brad Dempsey

The Fire Protection Podcast: Episode #68 – Enterprise Resource Planning: Brad Dempsey on Purpose-Built Systems in Fire & Life Safety

Episode Summary

In today’s episode of The Fire Protection Podcast, Drew talks all things enterprise resource planning (ERP) with Brad Dempsey, CEO and founder of Solutions360.

ERP systems play a critical role in supporting business operations—but not all ERPs are made equal. Dempsey talks through the evolution of ERP systems, what it means for an ERP to be “purpose-built,” and the unique ERP needs of fire protection businesses.”When you mix in the skill requirements, the technology, the engineering, even your service tech skill level is much, much higher in this industry. And that creates some special requirements,” Dempsey explains.

Watch or listen to this episode for insight into the history of ERP systems and how they effectively work within fire protection businesses.

Timestamps

  • 00:00 - Introduction
  • 02:40 - Brad’s Background
  • 06:04 - The Evolution of ERP
  • 09:13 - Purpose-Built ERP
  • 14:16 - When & How to Adopt an ERP System
  • 24:25 - KPIs in Fire Protection
  • 30:15 - Six Sigma & Lean Principles
  • 33:59 - Getting Started in Software
  • 36:49 - Trends in AI
  • 42:20 - Episode Wrap-Up

Full Transcript

Drew Slocum:
This is episode 68 of The Fire Protection Podcast, powered byInspect Point. Today, my guest is Brad Dempsey from Solutions360. Brad has a wealth of knowledge in the ERP space—enterprise resource planning. Essentially, kind of the central hub to a business, right? It's got financial, it's got business operations, it's got sales functionality, and there's a lot of different variety…There's some big behemoth companies out there with ERP functionality, but we get into the niche space of fire and security and audio/visual and the purpose-built systems. It's a new term I learned about where we're focusing on fire and safety and creating technology solutions around that.

So, traditionally, these bigger ERPs are focused on a variety of industries where, all right, let's hone in. There's a big enough market here in fire protection. Let's solve those issues within these niches. Great to have Brad on, gives a full timeline of where these accounting and ERPs have been over time, and we get into important metrics of what businesses should be tracking. So really cool to have him on and learn about it a little bit more. I actually learned a lot on the podcast myself.

So again, thanks for listening and feel free to share this episode. Thanks.

All right. We are live. Nobody caught this before, but I was—Brad and I were fixing our hair so we could get it ready for the podcast here.

Brad Dempsey:
I took a little longer than you did, for sure.

Drew Slocum:
Welcome Brad to The Fire Protection Podcast. Excited to have you on and learn a little bit more about what you guys do just in general in the ERP world.

Brad Dempsey:
Thanks, Drew. I'm very excited to be here. I've listened to a few of your podcasts and I've learned a lot. I think you do a great job.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, thanks. I think we just posted something recently about some—this is approaching 70 episodes, I think, so it's exciting. Wish I could do more, obviously. But I know obviously your background, you guys have a podcast yourself. That's really cool. I listened to a few of them.

Brad Dempsey:
Well, thanks.

Drew Slocum:
So I guess, for the audience, who is Brad, what is Solutions360? I guess, what is your mission here?

Brad Dempsey:
Well, Solutions360 has a purpose-built ERP system. And I know we're going to talk a little bit about, you know, what is an ERP system?

And I started the company in 1988, and it has evolved since the ‘90s into an ERP system now that targets what we call “technology integration companies.” So, life safety is obviously a very important part of that, but it's also audio/visual, security, even healthcare—are different markets that sometimes are considered low voltage subcontractors, specialty subcontractors. We fall into that same space.

Drew Slocum:
Yeah, it seems like fire protection, life safety, and security are, I mean, they've started to blend before, but they seem to be coming together a little bit more, at least in the North American market. I mean, it's still segmented everywhere, but it seems to be gelling together, and you can see that with some of the mergers and acquisitions going on, too.

Brad Dempsey:
Yeah. I don't know what your thoughts are, but I kind of see—the really unique part to me about life safety is probably more sprinkler systems. When I look at a fire alarm system

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