Since its founding in 2012, Houston Heavy Machinery has established itself as a trusted leader in the construction and earth-moving equipment sector. The company specializes in Caterpillar machinery, offering sales, rentals, and service. They have built a strong reputation across Texas and Louisiana, with an expanding export network reaching Africa and Latin America, based on a customer-first approach and integrity. Each top-quality machine is delivered after being thoroughly inspected and restored for peak performance.
As Houston Heavy Machinery expanded, their technology infrastructure struggled to keep up. They faced several challenges due to disconnected systems and a lack of reliable data synchronization:
- Inefficient Data Management: Managing inventory and parts across various systems resulted in duplicate data entry and time-consuming manual updates.
- Inconsistent Online Presence: A costly and challenging process to reliably sync the latest machine information from their core FileMaker database to the public WordPress website led to inconsistent website listings and hindered users’ ability to effectively filter and find available equipment.
- Performance and Reliability Concerns: The organization faced increasing concerns about overall efficiency and reliability due to performance bottlenecks and data silos. These issues stemmed from their reliance on numerous disparate tools, including FileMaker, multiple Google Workspace accounts, Dropbox, and Slack.
- Technology Debt: Outdated server infrastructure necessitated a critical upgrade to address existing technology debt.
Brilliantly Integrated Technology from LuminFire
Houston Heavy Machinery faced a common challenge: their fragmented, multi-vendor support model was creating inefficiencies and couldn’t keep up with their complex system needs. They needed a well-rounded partner who could truly scale with them.
They chose to consolidate with LuminFire. Leveraging our status as web experts, a Claris Platinum Partner, and Apple technology experts, LuminFire began implementing a more streamlined and unified solution. By combining custom engineering with Brilliant products, LuminFire connected and stabilize their disjointed business system:
- FileMaker Custom Development: Implemented a devops workflow to handle multiple vendors making simultaneous updates, automated the deployment process, stabilized and improved the sync processes and added error logging to catch issues.
- WordPress Website Development: LuminFire’s web developers rebuilt the company’s WordPress theme using the Genesis framework improving responsiveness, rendering speed, and editability.
- Website Optimization: improving performance, SEO, and user experience to drive traffic and leads.
- BrilliantConnect™ WordPress Integration: LuminFire’s connector efficiently syncs FileMaker inventory data with WordPress, keeping listings current and eliminating double data entry.
- BrilliantConnect™ Mailgun Integration: LuminFire’s transactional email connector replaces older, less reliable methods of sending email (e.g. SMTP) with modern transactional email services that improve security, deliverability, tracking and more.
- BrilliantStorage™ with AWS S3 + CDN: Automatically uploads and syncs machine images to secure cloud storage for fast, reliable access on the website and in email marketing.
- BrilliantWeb™ Hosting: Migration to LuminFire’s high-performance managed hosting ensures security, reliability, and maintainability for their WordPress sites.
- BrilliantID: Enables group based external authentication with Google Workspace.
- Apple Ecosystem Expertise: Assisted in troubleshooting of a failed macOS server migration and support of macOS workstations and iPads/iPhones for seamless daily operations.
Key Technical Achievements
LuminFire delivered a full suite of modern web experience upgrades to elevate Houston Heavy Machinery’s online presence, all combining to make the website faster, smarter, and easier to maintain.
- Consolidated and standardized all websites onto a single WordPress platform, taking over support for two existing sites and launching one entirely new site.
- Developed and implemented a unified style guide to replace disparate templates, ensuring a consistent brand experience across all web pages.
- Eliminated sitewide responsive design issues, guaranteeing the website displays optimally on every device.
- Integrated an interactive map with clickable location pins and an auto-updating carousel for displaying YouTube videos.
- Upgraded legacy templates to use modern Gutenberg blocks, providing staff with an intuitive, drag-and-drop content update experience.
- Created dynamic pages that automatically adapt colors and logos (e.g., red for Takeuchi, blue for Kobelco), allowing staff to manage brand updates without requiring developer support.
- Implemented a new “Models” system that automatically imports equipment specifications from manufacturer CSV files, eliminating countless hours of manual data entry.
- Launched a dedicated Careers page to prominently showcase open positions and efficiently route applicant submissions directly to the HR department.
LuminFire’s engagement quickly grew beyond the initial integration. As the project progressed, our engineers proactively identified and implemented further integration and technology solutions, leading to greater efficiency and simplified operations for the client.
- Google Workspace: Unified five disparate accounts into a single environment, resulting in lower costs, less complexity, and fewer employee email addresses.
- FileMaker External Authentication: The implementation of external, group-based authentication, facilitated by Google Single Sign-On (SSO), significantly enhanced FileMaker’s security and stability. This change streamlined management and reduced overhead while enabling multi-factor authentication.
- Improved Reporting: Improved accuracy in business insights through the elimination of pain points and refinement of accounts receivable and payable (AR/AP) processes and reporting workflows.
- Employee Extranet: Established a private employee extranet for secure internal communication
- Error Reporting: Replaced use of Slack channels for error reporting with Rollbar for more advanced real-time system monitoring and error handling
- Newsletter Authoring: Created a tool that utilizes the existing WordPress website to generate email newsletters, eliminating the need for manual double-entry into a separate newsletter platform.
Results
LuminFire transformed Houston Heavy Machinery’s fragmented systems into a unified, modern technology ecosystem—saving time, increasing accuracy, and boosting profitability.
“LuminFire helped us clean up and consolidate our technology. Everything now works together seamlessly, saving us hours every week.” — Houston Heavy Machinery Management Team
How Can LuminFire Help You?
If your organization wants to eliminate inefficiency, connect business systems, and gain a competitive edge, LuminFire can help. Contact us today to schedule a strategy consultation and discover how our Brilliant solutions can make your business more effective, productive, and profitable.
Tim Cimbura – CEO, CFO and Solution Engineer
Tim is an expert in creating custom business solutions that make businesses more effective, productive, and profitable. He specializes in rapid application development with Claris FileMaker, Laravel, and WordPress. He also knows Apple macOS technology inside and out.