AE Smith: Restoring SAP System Integrity and Operational Efficiency with Insight Path

Following its separation from former parent company Spotless, AE Smith, a leading national mechanical services provider, faced urgent challenges in re-establishing its enterprise systems, financial reporting, and operational workflows. Legacy system issues, compounded by configuration flaws in SAP S/4HANA, were impeding procurement, inventory, and financial processes—resulting in operational inefficiencies and reporting inconsistencies.

To resolve these issues and stabilise the business, AE Smith engaged Insight Path.

The engagement was led by Liz Ryan, a senior systems strategist at Insight Path, who brought deep expertise in SAP enterprise environments and a pragmatic approach to systems triage and transformation.

Results:

Enterprise System Recovery – SAP S/4HANA
Liz led a detailed diagnostic and remediation project within AE Smith’s SAP S/4HANA environment, identifying configuration errors, broken workflows, and reporting gaps inherited post-divestment. These were systematically corrected to restore accuracy, data flow, and confidence in business-critical processes.

Procurement & Inventory Stabilisation
Key procurement and materials management modules were restructured—resulting in improved control over purchase requisitions, inventory transactions, vendor management, and stock visibility across AE Smith’s national operations.

Financial Process Restoration
Through targeted corrections to the FI/CO (Finance & Controlling) modules, Insight Path re-established core financial workflows, including cost centre reporting, approvals, reconciliations, and audit trails—giving the finance team reliable control over end-to-end processes.

End-User Enablement & Governance
Beyond technical corrections, Insight Path created standard operating procedures, process maps, and training support to ensure AE Smith’s internal teams could confidently maintain and operate the system moving forward. Governance frameworks were embedded to reduce reliance on external system rescue in future.

A Strategic Systems Recovery Partnership

AE Smith turned to Insight Path at a critical time. With trust in SAP S/4HANA faltering and day-to-day operations becoming increasingly strained, Liz Ryan’s leadership and enterprise systems expertise restored stability, credibility, and control.

The success of the project was defined not just by fixing what was broken, but by giving AE Smith’s teams the tools and clarity to manage and scale their ERP platform sustainably.

Looking Ahead:

With system integrity restored and financial processes back on track, AE Smith is now confidently positioned for future growth and operational expansion. Insight Path remains a trusted partner, offering strategic guidance, system governance, and process improvement advisory to ensure AE Smith’s ERP platform continues to support performance at scale.