Lawson Mechanical Contractors
Lawson Mechanical Contractors was already known for running a tight purchasing operation—but the process still involved a lot of manual steps that slowed things down. With Kojo, Lawson gave their field, warehouse, and office teams a faster, more connected way to buy materials, cutting out the busywork and unlocking new visibility across every project.
The Story
Lawson Mechanical Contractors has been a cornerstone in California for over 75 years. Lawson delivers mechanical and plumbing solutions across a broad footprint throughout California. With a robust team and a portfolio of 20 to 40+ active jobs at any given time, Lawson is known for its ability to manage complex work across commercial and industrial projects.
Brandon Barbour, Lawson’s Purchasing Manager, leads a team of purchasing agents, mechanics, drivers, and warehouse associates. He plays a key role in executing Lawson’s centralized procurement strategy which has been built to negotiate purchases and pricing across multiple jobs over an extended period of time.
While having a centralized purchasing department brings control and oversight, Lawson faced similar challenges to other mechanical contractors with pricing volatility, supply chain disruptions, and effects of tariffs. “Vendors aren’t holding prices for more than 24 hours,” Brandon notes. “We’ve even seen pass-through increases on existing POs because of sudden hikes in production costs.” This unpredictability made it increasingly difficult for Lawson’s team to react quickly, compare vendor quotes, and make well-informed decisions on materials.
At the same time, Lawson was wrestling with outdated workflows: handwritten requisitions and purchase orders, lack of costing visibility and a time-consuming data entry process.
“I used to have to go find hard copies on someone’s desk if we needed to job cost something quickly.” - Brandon Barbour, Purchasing Manager, Lawson Mechanical
For large material orders, a single team member could spend an entire day rekeying 200+ line items from a bill of material (BOM). The inefficiency wasn’t just inconvenient; it was unsustainable. Lawson recognized the necessity for a better way to move faster, reduce errors, and modernize their procurement and warehouse operations.
The Solution
Lawson Mechanical rolled out Kojo’s Procurement and Warehouse solutions to bring structure, visibility, and automation to what had previously been a fragmented, paper-heavy process. The most immediate impact was on data entry: Kojo eliminated redundant steps by allowing material requests to flow directly from foremen into purchasing—streamlining operations and giving the team more control over procurement. Instead of entering the same information multiple times, Lawson’s team now inputs data once, and it carries through the entire workflow.
But Kojo didn’t just eliminate inefficiencies—it introduced a level of visibility Lawson had never had before. Every requisition, from warehouse picks to POs, is now tracked digitally and accessible to anyone on the team. “Being able to look at the workflows—not just me, but anyone who has access to Kojo—is greatly beneficial to our team,” Brandon explains. This shared transparency has become a cornerstone of their procurement process.
That visibility now extends to pricing as well. With Kojo, the team can now:
- Search past purchases to quickly locate cost history
- Review pricing across invoices to identify trends and variances
- Monitor cost changes over time, including unannounced increases
Kojo has also transformed Lawson’s warehouse operations. Previously, materials were picked and transferred without reliable tracking. Now, the warehouse team uses Kojo to:
- Manage and track warehouse picks and transfers
- Ensure accurate job costing
- Another major improvement has come from Kojo’s BOM (Bill of Materials) tools.
For large, complex projects:
- Detailers upload BOMs directly into Kojo; no more manual re-entry
- Data is organized and ready for quoting or issuing a PO
- Tasks that once took hours now take minutes
What stands out to Brandon just as much as the functionality is Kojo’s responsiveness. “Kojo is very responsive. They're constantly working to improve it and that’s a neat thing to be a part of.” For Lawson, the partnership is as valuable as the platform itself.
Their Favorite Features
- BOM Capabilities
- Pricing History & Analytics
- Digital Requisitions & POs
- Warehouse Materials
