How Thermo Design Engineering Unified Global ETO Operations with ProjectSOS

Background 

Thermo Design Engineering is a global leader in the design, engineering, manufacturing, and construction of energy facilities. Operating across more than 40 countries with subsidiaries in Canada, Cyprus, Dubai, and Bahrain, TDE takes on some of the most technically demanding engineer-to-order projects in the industry — each one unique, long-cycle, and requiring precise coordination across multiple teams, currencies, and geographies. 

That scale and complexity demand a platform built for it. TDE found that platform in Oracle NetSuite, extended with ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing by SnapOn Software — a purpose-built product suite that gave their teams real-time visibility, automated financial workflows, and a single source of truth across the entire business. 

The Problem 

TDE had relied on Sage 300 CRE for over two decades. In its time, the system served a purpose — but as the business grew, it became a constraint. Financial data sat in silos. Engineering, procurement, manufacturing, and finance teams worked off disconnected systems, with little visibility into what was happening across the project lifecycle. Job costing was manual, driven largely by spreadsheets, which meant project profitability was always a lagging indicator rather than a live one. 

Retainage — a critical component of project billing in TDE's industry — was tracked by hand on both the receivables and payables sides, creating unnecessary compliance risk on every engagement. Multi-currency operations across four subsidiaries compounded the problem, requiring workarounds that introduced reconciliation errors and added overhead. And critically, there was no connection between engineering design tools and the financial system, meaning information had to be re-entered manually at every handoff. 

TDE needed a modern foundation — one that could handle the complexity of a globally distributed ETO operation, automate its most time-consuming financial workflows, and grow alongside the business without requiring re-platforming. 

The Solution: ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing 

ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing is SnapOn Software's purpose-built product bundle for Oracle NetSuite, designed specifically for custom manufacturers running complex, long-cycle projects. Rather than adapting a generic ERP to fit the needs of engineer-to-order manufacturing, ProjectSOS brings together the tools ETO businesses actually need — natively integrated within NetSuite, pre-configured, and ready to deploy. 

For TDE, that meant four core capabilities working together from day one. 

NS Job Costing Premium 

ProjectSOS gave TDE the ability to structure every project around a detailed Work Breakdown Structure, tracking costs by phase, task, and cost code in real time. Rather than pulling numbers together manually at month-end, project managers and finance teams now had live dashboards showing budget versus actuals across every active job — whether it was running out of Edmonton, Cyprus, Dubai, or Bahrain. The shift from spreadsheet-driven reporting to live data fundamentally changed how TDE managed project performance. 

NS Retainage 

Retainage management was fully automated within the NetSuite billing cycle. What had previously been a manual, error-prone process on both the receivables and payables sides became a rules-driven workflow built into every project from the start. TDE's finance team no longer needed to track contractual holdbacks by hand — the system handled it, eliminating compliance risk and freeing up time for higher-value work. 

SubContract 

Progress billing and subcontractor management were brought onto the same platform as everything else. Structured billing workflows replaced manual invoice preparation, and subcontractor commitments, deliveries, and payments were tracked end-to-end within NetSuite. For a business managing complex multi-party projects across multiple jurisdictions, having a single system of record for the full procure-to-pay cycle was a significant operational improvement. 

NS Project Dashboard 

Executives and project managers gained a consolidated view across all active ETO engagements — revenue recognition, milestone progress, cost exposure, and billing status — without needing to request reports or compile data from multiple sources. The project dashboard made the health of the business visible at a glance, in real time. 

A Connected Project Lifecycle 

Beyond the core ProjectSOS bundle, TDE extended NetSuite to connect the full project lifecycle. A CADLink integration pushed BOM data, design revisions, and work order details directly from engineering into NetSuite, eliminating the manual handoffs that had historically caused rework and scheduling delays. A payroll integration brought labour costs into project cost tracking automatically, giving TDE a complete picture of project spend that included workforce. A CRM integration ensured that from the moment a deal was won, the commercial terms captured upstream informed how the project was set up in the system — no duplicate data entry, no gaps. 

The result was an operation where sales, engineering, manufacturing, subcontract management, billing, and financial close all lived in one connected platform. 

Results 

Deploying ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing on Oracle NetSuite gave Thermo Design Engineering something their previous system never could: real-time visibility into a globally distributed ETO business, with automated financial workflows that removed the manual overhead that had built up over two decades. 

Project profitability became a live metric rather than a monthly calculation. Retainage compliance became systematic rather than manual. Four subsidiaries across three continents moved onto a single platform, consolidating financials, inventory, and project data into one source of truth. The gap between engineering and finance — once bridged only by manual handoffs — closed entirely. And the spreadsheets that had powered job costing for years were retired, replaced by automated, connected workflows that scale as the business does. 

About ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing 

ProjectSOS for ETO Manufacturing is a purpose-built NetSuite product bundle from SnapOn Software. It is designed for custom manufacturers who run complex, long-cycle projects and need more than a standard ERP can offer out of the box. Natively integrated within Oracle NetSuite, it delivers real-time job costing, automated retainage management, subcontract billing, and centralised project visibility — all from a single platform, without the need for custom development. 

If your business manages engineer-to-order projects across multiple sites, subsidiaries, or currencies, ProjectSOS gives you the control and visibility to run them well. Visit snapon-software.com to learn more or book a demo.