Harris Manufacturing Doubles Quote Turnaround Speed & Reveals Critical Profit Margin Insights

Background

A family owned and operated business located in Orange, MA, Harris Manufacturing Supply & Co. was founded in 1948 by two brothers, Harold and Bernard Barnes. The Barnes’ originally started the manufacturing business as a sand casting foundry, machining all of their castings using turret lathes.

Harris Manufacturing began expanding into CNC machining in the early 2000s, and has continued to invest in state-of-the-art machinery ever since. Over the years, the business has evolved and the foundry has been phased out. They now have a strong concentration in swiss-style machining, and they also provide finishing services.

Challenge

For a while, Harris Manufacturing was struggling to get quotes out in a timely manner. Haley Barnes, Vice President, recalls, “It was taking us up to a week to return a quote. It was nobody’s fault, our team just wasn’t able to spend that much of their time quoting.” This also meant that if there was a complicated part, things were often getting no-quoted.

“Before implementing Paperless Parts, our Production Manager was overwhelmed with the demands of running the shop floor and quotes were taking a back seat. This made it difficult to grow the business and win new clients,” Haley says.

Another big challenge Harris Manufacturing faced was calculating pricing on machines that were on an hourly rate. “Some jobs are more expensive than others, but there was no strategy behind how that would be reflected in the final quote. We were winning on some, losing out on others, and just hoping and praying that it would even out. We didn’t have a way of measuring profitability,” reflects Haley.

Solution

To overcome these challenges, Harris Manufacturing turned to Paperless Parts. With the platform’s easy-to-use quoting and estimating tools, they’re now able to quickly send quotes, even for work that is outside of their wheelhouse.

“Paperless Parts provides clarity on our profitability, allowing us to see exactly how much money we’re making on each job and make more informed pricing decisions,” Haley says. They’re even able to track how much money each of their machines is earning them. “Paperless Parts provides metrics and analytics to see how everything is performing clearly without the need to dig through a bunch of reports.”

Moving forward, Harris Manufacturing plans to leverage Paperless Parts to streamline and standardize processes even further. Their plans include creating a quality manual and quality system, as well as implementing internal controls to ensure efficiency and consistency in all of their work. Haley spoke to how Paperless Parts might play a role in their plan: “I’m confident that Paperless Parts will be a key part of our growth strategy as we continue to focus on expanding our existing processes and moving into new ones.”

It’s also become easy for Harris Manufacturing to send quotes out even if it’s not in their wheelhouse, because Paperless Parts makes it easy to offer add-ons when customers are checking out. Their team can easily mark certain jobs up that they’ll need to invest more of their time and resources into, helping to protect their bottom line.

Results

Since implementing Paperless Parts, Harris Manufacturing has been able to:

• Increase quote throughput. It used to be common for Harris Manufacturing to send out just one quote per week. And because they’re accustomed to doing repeat work, sometimes that number was zero. “In the last seven days, though, we’ve sent five quotes out the door; that’s a pretty big deal for us,” remarks Haley.
• Make greater use out of critical customer information. “Having drawings, 3D prints, models, customer notes, revenue, and more all in one place really helps us prioritize the hot leads.” Having this information centralized and on-hand will be critical as Harris Manufacturing expands into new areas and begins juggling a high-quantity pipeline.
• Respond to quotes 99% faster. On average, Harris Manufacturing saves 3-5 hours per week on quoting, which has allowed them to move through the quoting process much faster. “Quotes used to take us a week to get out and now can take as little as a day,” says Haley. As Harris Manufacturing looks to take on more and more new customers, this will help them connect with new buyers faster and win more work.