Why Digital Connectivity Is Key to the Future of Machine Shops
At our POWER 2025 user conference, one theme came up again and again: the importance of digital connectivity throughout the entire manufacturing process.
What do we mean by “connectivity”? Today’s most forward-thinking shops are linking every phase of their operations, aiming to improve efficiency in both their operations and their customer experience. At Paperless Parts, we focus specifically on streamlining quoting, but our broader goal is to be an integral part of a larger, more connected workflow.
As manufacturing technology and AI tools continue to advance, this vision is becoming more achievable for shops. And now, customers are coming to expect this kind of seamless experience.
The Promise of a Connected Shop—and the Cost of Fragmentation
What does a connected manufacturing operation look like? Quoting, programming, scheduling, production, and quality control are all integrated. Shops can deliver fast quotes with DFM feedback, use that data to drive operations, allow customers to track order status in real time, and continuously improve with detailed performance data.
But to achieve this vision, you need a connected, holistic view of your operations, as well as the analytical tools to properly interpret your data. Nipun Girotra, founder and CEO of 1factory, has spent his career addressing this challenge. His company aims to simplify and automate quality control by aggregating inspection data from CMMs, handheld gauges, and other sources to deliver actionable insights directly to the relevant team members on the shop floor.
He was inspired to start his company after starting out in the semiconductor capital equipment industry. At the factory he ran, there were constant Non-Conformance Reports (NCRs), but no one seemed to understand the systemic issues behind them.
“When you have a lot of data like that,” how can you know what’s really going on?” Girotra asked. “What’s hiding in that unstructured data?”
By creating a program that unlocks the power of this data, he’s created the connected feedback loop he was searching for. One customer who deployed 1factory as part of a process improvement strategy saw a 14 percentage point increase in yield, creating significant new capacity through connectivity without adding any equipment.
1Factory CEO Nipun Girota wth Jeremy Stadtmueller from Autodesk at POWER 2025.
How Connectivity Builds Better Manufacturers
Ryan Hochstetler, Digital Director at General Stamping & Metalworks, has experienced the dangers of fragmentation firsthand, and his company turned to Paperless to fix it. The shop was struggling with disconnected systems that were introducing errors and delays.
“We found ourselves spending so much time double- and triple-entering data and it just led to lots and lots of errors,” Hochstetler said. “Then engineering gets the part for production and they say, ‘What happened here? Did we misquote this?’”
Ryan Hochstetler speaking at POWER 2025, along with Michael Neelon with Fathom and Jamie Goettler with BTX PRECISION.
“Now with Paperless, our integrations prevent the kinds of errors and inefficiencies we used to see. It’s coming in from the quote with all of our work centers, all of our operations, all of our materials, leveraging a lot of the APIs. The Paperless team worked with us to build out that integration, because we saw we were in an environment full of risk and potential error.”
Hochsteter wasn’t alone. At POWER 2025, several Paperless Parts users spoke about the powerful ways they’re leveraging the software for more connected workflows. Jonathon Friedl of Black Mountain Manufacturing emphasized his company’s commitment to a “frictionless experience,” and shared how he built an auto-quoting platform on top of Paperless Parts.
Paperless Parts’ CEO Jason Ray praises this spirit of innovation. “We always encourage our users to explore the art of the possible. We make our API documentation public because we want our customers to be able to do this on their own. If you have an idea—how to push data to a certain place or create a certain report—let’s talk about it.”
Paperless Parts CEO & Co-Founder Jason Ray.
Beyond Quoting
Paperless Parts is a powerful piece of the modern tech stack, but it’s just one piece. True digital transformation requires your platforms to interact.
Autodesk is already a giant in design and engineering software, and they’re actively evolving their products to work toward this vision and support end-to-end workflows. Jeremy Stadtmueller, Director of Product Management in Autodesk’s Design Engineering and Documentation department, said that soon, solid geometry within Autodesk will be directly linked to a task’s status—not a proprietary file. That shift would eliminate friction across partner platforms by eliminating the need for constant file conversions and extractions, accelerating collaboration and production efficiency.
Where to Begin? Start Small, Then Scale
Every shop is different, and your digital strategy should be tailored to your specific operations and customer needs. If you’re unsure where to start improving, there was one consistent piece of advice at POWER 2025: start small.
Michael Neelon, Senior Manager of Digital Applications at Fathom Digital Manufacturing, put it best: “Don’t look for the perfect solution or the perfect use case. Find something that needs automation or needs improvement. Look at your process, find a gap, and see if you can automate that.”
“Start small, build experience, and keep moving from there.”
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Neil Johnson is a Senior Content Marketing Manager in the Marketing Solutions department at Paperless Parts: our in-house team of manufacturing and marketing experts who keep their finger on the pulse of the latest industry trends.