When your company is responsible for providing essential life safety and security services, reliability isn’t optional. Every inspection, alarm, and system check needs to happen on time to keep people and facilities protected.

As a trusted leader in fire protection and life safety for nearly a century, Silco Fire & Security takes that responsibility seriously. Their teams design, install, monitor, and maintain critical safety systems for commercial and industrial facilities across Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Kentucky.

Silco has grown steadily since their founding in 1931. As the company expanded, so did the complexity of their service operations. To continue delivering excellent service, field technicians needed a modern, connected platform that could manage strict compliance timelines, optimize scheduling, and give leadership and customers better visibility into daily operations.

Silco knew Salesforce was the right foundation, but they needed a partner who could design a solution around how their business truly works.

The Challenge: Disconnected Systems and a Dormant Salesforce Investment

Silco had already invested in Salesforce, but the platform wasn’t configured to reflect the realities of daily operations.

Disconnected systems and legacy configurations limited efficiency and visibility. Scheduling and dispatch relied on shared calendars and manual coordination, which added work for dispatchers and left technicians without real-time updates in the field. Inspection dates, which are critical for compliance, were tracked in separate systems, increasing the risk of missed deadlines and duplicate effort.

Silco’s ERP, Sedona Office, held essential operational data but wasn’t integrated with Salesforce. The lack of connection limited reporting and made it difficult to see customers, assets, and service performance in one place.

Silco knew the potential was there. They just needed a partner who could rebuild Salesforce to align with their business processes and create a single, reliable source of truth for field service operations.

The Solution: A Ground-Up Rebuild and a Strategic Partnership

ForeFront began with a detailed diagnostic of Silco’s Salesforce environment. The team reviewed every field, object, and automation from prior configurations to identify what worked and what didn’t. After completing the analysis, both teams agreed it was best to start fresh. Using a structured “destructive package” process, ForeFront cleared legacy metadata and rebuilt Salesforce from the ground up to align with Silco’s business model and service operations.

Next, the focus shifted to optimizing Salesforce Field Service (SFS). ForeFront redesigned Silco’s scheduling and dispatch processes to match how technicians actually work. Field Service Mobile was implemented to replace manual calendars, give techs real-time visibility into assignments, and provide the flexibility to manage and reschedule appointments for certain recurring inspection routes. SFS also allows dispatchers to balance workloads dynamically and make on-the-fly adjustments to appointments, assignments, and routes.

Integration was central to the solution. ForeFront connected Salesforce with Sedona Office ERP to synchronize customer, asset, and work order data. The team also integrated Salesforce with Silco’s custom-built inspection documentation system to ensure that data on inspection results, compliance records, and supporting documents flows seamlessly between platforms.

Throughout the project, ForeFront acted as a true strategic partner rather than an order taker. When proposed solutions didn’t align with best practices or long-term scalability, our team challenged assumptions, presented alternatives, and worked side-by-side with Silco’s internal stakeholders to create sustainable, scalable processes.

The Outcome: Visibility, Compliance, and Bottom-Line Impact

Today, Salesforce has become Silco’s operational backbone. Accounts, work orders, and inspection data are now centralized in Salesforce, and service teams have a single source of truth for customer, asset, and compliance information.

Key results of this field service transformation include:

• More predictable service revenue through automated maintenance plan renewals that manage inspection intervals and due dates. These automations also make it easier for customers to stay compliant.
• Real-time workload visibility that lets dispatchers optimize technician routes and make quick adjustments throughout the day.
• A more transparent customer experience through automated appointment notifications and real-time technician ETAs with Appointment Assistant, which has improved communication and service reliability.
• Unified reporting across sales and service that equips leadership to make data-driven decisions that improve profitability and customer satisfaction.

The financial impact of this re-imagined platform is also tangible: With connected data and streamlined workflows in Salesforce, Silco is reducing overhead, improving accuracy, and capturing more value from every service interaction.

With a unified platform and clean, structured data, Silco now has the foundation to support what comes next, whether that’s ERP modernization, advanced analytics, or AI-driven scheduling and forecasting.