Franklin Sheet Metal Quotes 2x Faster with Paperless Parts

Background

Franklin Sheet Metal has spent over six decades designing and fabricating precision sheet metal parts and products, making them one of the oldest fabrication shops in New England. They offer several other services in addition to metal fabrication, including design for manufacturing (DFM), machining, welding, and raw material sourcing.

Over the years, Franklin Sheet Metal has developed a reputation for outstanding customer service and quick turnaround times in and around Franklin, Massachusetts. They’ve worked locally with their town government and Department of Public Works, as well as with big corporations and general contractors, and have built strong relationships with several repeat customers.

Challenge

Franklin Sheet Metal stored all of their engineering data in an old ERP system that wasn’t even compatible with a computer mouse. When they needed to quote a new project, they were stuck pulling data from the ERP system and searching file cabinets or archived bankers boxes for old quotes. They would then input the appropriate information into an Excel spreadsheet that General Manager Michael Abi-Kheirs developed to streamline the quoting process as much as possible.

“I created my own quoting form, and it was fine when I first started,” Michael said. “But then we got more customers, and I told the owner that Excel just couldn’t keep up. We couldn’t search everything, and we were losing the quoting history.”

As the only estimator, Michael was spending most of his time quoting. Not only was the process inefficient and difficult to navigate, but it also failed to consistently produce accurate quotes. And with no organization system in place for RFQs, Franklin Sheet Metal had no way of tracking and analyzing data about their win rate or other factors.

Solution

Paperless Parts enables Franklin Sheet Metal to store all their data in one easily accessible location. Michael no longer has to rely on an archaic ERP system and Excel spreadsheets to quote projects—he has everything he needs in the Paperless Parts software.

“It makes me feel safe. Now, I actually feel confident in my quoting and I know I am not missing anything,” Michael said.

Paperless Parts lays RFQs out clearly and methodically, so Michael can keep better track of them. Instead of writing important information and critical reminders for himself down on paper like he once did, all he needs to do is check his dashboard to stay up to date.

Franklin Sheet Metal has grown since implementing Paperless Parts, and although the volume of quotes has increased, Michael can manage it efficiently due to the ease and speed of the software.

“I appreciate how well the onboarding process was structured. It’s not easy getting onboarded onto a platform that is so detailed, and the team was able to compartmentalize each piece of it. It was such a pleasant experience and I always knew Paperless Parts was there to help me,” said Michael. “There was some enlightenment happening, too. Paperless Parts opened up doorways to a lot of new opportunities for us.”

Results

With Paperless Parts, Franklin Sheet Metal:

1. Completes quotes twice as fast. Franklin Sheet Metal doubles their quoting speed with Paperless Parts, which is especially important now that quoting volume has increased.
2. Tracks important metrics like win-rate to make informed decisions. Franklin Sheet Metal had no official method for tracking their win rate before implementing Paperless Parts, and now they are able to measure this metric to understand how they are performing. Michael is confident that the win rate has increased since implementing Paperless Parts.
3. Maximizes revenue with expedite pricing. Franklin Sheet Metal boosts revenue with Paperless Parts’ expedite pricing option, which allows customers to accelerate their project timelines at a higher cost.

Paperless Parts stores years’ worth of information in one secure, searchable database, improving quoting efficiency and accuracy and allowing Franklin Sheet Metal to double their quoting speed. Advanced analytics features enable Franklin Sheet Metal to track their win rate, and quoting options like expedite pricing provide additional opportunities to maximize revenue.