Lubrication Engineers Scales Like a Well-oiled Machine with Sage X3

In a busy plant, lubrication can feel invisible. Until a bearing fails, a line goes down, and everyone starts doing the math in real time.

Lubrication Engineers builds for that moment. Since 1951, the company has focused on premium lubricants engineered for high cost of failure environments, where uptime carries real financial weight. Customers who live with expensive downtime tend to invest in protection, and Lubrication Engineers earns that trust with products and expertise that hold up under pressure.

The business serves customers in more than 65 countries, supported by field representatives who know what equipment looks like outside the office. The industry is fragmented, and Lubrication Engineers stays intentionally focused on performance over commodity volume. “We’re not a major oil conglomerate,” says Roy Banes, CFO. “We’re a mid-sized manufacturer of high-performance lubricants that differentiates ourselves through a high-touch service model.”

Growth has followed, along with higher expectations for internal visibility and control.

WHEN GROWTH RAISES THE BAR ON EVERYTHING

After a private equity investment in September 2023, Lubrication Engineers set an ambitious goal: grow the business fourfold over the next five to six years. That kind of growth touches everything — hiring, new products, new markets, acquisitions — and it has a way of exposing any soft spots in the operating model. ERP matters more in this phase, because it’s where the numbers either hold up or start raising questions.

Lubrication Engineers had already invested in a Sage X3 implementation, originally purchasing the software through a different Sage partner. As the company geared up for its next chapter, the team transitioned Sage X3 support to Net at Work, a move that happened shortly before Roy joined as CFO and proved timely as he began digging into the close and asking bigger questions.

The company also moved Sage X3 to Cloud at Work, Net at Work’s hosting and private cloud business, as part of its Sage X3 cloud hosting strategy to reduce risk and improve service and support.
“We did it for risk management and to streamline support, Roy says. “The transition was smooth, and we’re really happy with the performance and what we’re getting from Cloud at Work.”

A CFO’S FIRST MOVE: FOLLOW THE NUMBERS

Roy stepped into the role with deep finance leadership and a candid starting point. “I had no previous experience with Sage X3,” he says. “So I did what I always do. I started going through the close, asking questions, and following the numbers.”

The system wasn’t broken. It was a system that hadn’t kept up with how the business was evolving. Close practices were inconsistent. Periods weren’t always closed cleanly. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) results were inconsistent with business performance. Balance sheet reporting lacked completeness. On the operations side, manufacturing variances and inventory inconsistencies needed tighter handling.

Roy sums it up in a way every finance leader recognizes: “We weren’t fully utilizing the system, and we weren’t maintaining it the way you need to when you’re scaling. So, I brought in Net at Work to help do a mini reimplementation.”

Net at Work approached it as Sage X3 ERP optimization, tightening the close, strengthening controls, and improving how the team uses the system day to day.

TURNING ERP INTO A SYSTEM TEAMS TRUST

The early wins were solid. The company gained a more accurate, complete trial balance that the team could hand to auditors with confidence. Period close became more consistent. Balance sheet reporting improved. Manufacturing accounting became easier to interpret, including how to handle variances.

Roy’s favorite improvements are the ones that prevent messes. Net at Work helped build reports that flag when the system starts drifting out of balance, so issues surface early. “If it doesn’t reconcile, we can action it,” he says. “That’s huge. You don’t want to discover problems three weeks later.”

Just as important, the team protected system integrity as changes were made. A long-running ERP environment can pick up complexity over time, especially when it’s highly customized. “We’re pretty customized,” Roy says. “That makes patches and upgrades more complex and time-consuming than they should be.” Net at Work helped manage that complexity and simplify where possible, keeping the environment supportable as the business grows.

BETTER STRUCTURE, BETTER DECISIONS, BETTER MARGIN CONTROL

Net at Work worked with the finance team to support a chart of accounts reset and utilize dimensional fields so the company could tag transactions in ways that reflect how leadership manages the business. Customer, market, and product details became part of the structure, and that structure fed KPIs that leadership could trust. Before, much of that analysis was manual. “We were doing a lot of this outside the system,” Roy says. “Now we can generate and review the most important KPIs right from the system.”

With that structure in place, the company can analyze revenue and contribution margin by segment, customer, and product groupings. EBITDA comes directly from Sage X3, strengthening internal reporting and the cadence of decision-making.

Roy points to pricing as a clear example. Better margin visibility helps the team decide where to push and where to pause. “It flows into our pricing decisions,” he says. “Sometimes it tells us to tap the brakes on future price increases.”

The team also gained a clearer way to spot profit leakage. Freight is one area they watch closely. “We expect freight revenue to cover freight expense,” Roy explains. “With the new setup, we can see when that’s not happening and address it.”

Bid work improved too. With stronger confidence in contribution and gross margins, Lubrication Engineers can more accurately account for the true cost of servicing business. “It helps us price bids with the real costs in mind,” Roy says. “We have a lot more confidence in what gross margin really looks like.”

NET AT WORK STANDS WITH THE BEST

Roy has worked with major consulting firms. He’s clear about what impressed him here, and it isn’t a logo. “So often, it’s not the brand of the company,” he says. “It comes down to the people.”

Then he puts a fine point on it. “Before this, I mainly used Big Four firms,” Roy says. “I would put Net at Work up against any of them.”

For Roy, the difference shows up when something complex breaks, or a big change needs to happen fast. Net at Work brings deep Sage X3 expertise, plus real history with how Lubrication Engineers is configured. “They understand our initial setup and the history behind it,” he says. “That matters when you’re solving big problems.”

He also values how the team operates day to day. “They do good work,” Roy says. “If mistakes happen, they own it and keep things moving.”

READY FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER

Finance improvements have created a stronger foundation, and Lubrication Engineers is now looking more deeply into manufacturing optimization within Sage X3 — the next phrase of Sage X3 ERP optimization as the business scales. Order-to-cash, procure-to-pay, MRP, and additional modules like EDI and project accounting are on the roadmap.

Roy sees it as a continuation of the same theme: strengthen the operating backbone, keep the business scalable, and stay focused on what Lubrication Engineers does best. After all, the company’s promise to customers is about reliability. Now, the back office is built to match it.