KMM Group Successfully Merges Three Businesses into a Cohesive Multi-Site Organization Using Paperless Parts

Background

KMM Group, Ltd. manufactures mission-critical medical, aerospace, defense, and other advanced components. Leveraging a combined 100-year history of leading-edge milling, turning, grinding, EDM, engineering, and assembly, the organization is the result of a collaborative fusion of three world-class companies: KV Inc., M&S Centerless Grinding, Inc., and Meron Medical. In the spring of 2024, KMM opened its new global headquarters in Hatboro, PA, featuring a 100,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility for ultra-precision machining and grinding.

Challenge

In 2020, KMM Group merged the three distinct companies, leading to a surge in incoming RFQs. The pandemic also put an unprecedented strain on the medical manufacturing industry.

KMM needed a way to process a significantly higher volume of quotes faster and more consistently. However, they were quoting out of an ERP system that made the estimating and quoting process siloed and cumbersome. They didn’t see a way to speed up turnaround time to scale effectively without drastically increasing overhead.

Consistency was also a concern; Sonny Prince, Head of Estimating at KMM, recalls, “Our ERP system lacked revision tracking, so we couldn’t tell if we quoted a job one way one week and another the following week.” The risk of inconsistencies was heightened by the fact that three distinct operations were all quoting with different methodologies and naming conventions. “We needed a quoting methodology that unified our teams and was flexible to scale with us as we continued to grow and evolve.”

Solution

To capitalize on the influx of new opportunities, KMM needed an efficient, consistent quoting process. They turned to Paperless Parts for a robust solution tailored to their unique needs.

The ability to customize costing and pricing automation in Paperless Parts has significantly streamlined KMM’s quoting process. “My favorite thing about Paperless Parts is the customization,” says Sonny. “Default routers and processes automatically calculate pricing with just a few operator inputs, which has made things incredibly efficient for us.”

Team collaboration has also improved; Sonny works alongside six other team members across estimating and engineering who regularly use the platform. “Automated task assignments help keep us all on top of our responsibilities,” he says. Since being up and running on the software, KMM has exchanged over 2,500 secure, internal chats within Paperless Parts.

With more collaboration happening than ever, Paperless Parts has played a crucial role in driving standardization and consistency across KMM. “Having a single format that can be modified to meet specific needs reduces the need for workarounds, which is important because everybody does things slightly differently. Now, we’re able to create custom logic that allows everyone to estimate their way while still yielding consistent outcomes across the enterprise.”

As KMM continually evolves to serve new industries, customers, and processes, it’s important for Paperless Parts to partner with them to successfully navigate change. Sonny works hand-in-hand with the Paperless Parts team to continually improve operations: “If I want to customize or update something in our system, I just send a note over to Paperless Parts’ support team, and they respond quickly every time.”

Results

With the help of Paperless Parts, KMM has been able to:

• Turn quotes around faster. With Paperless Parts, KMM Group can accurately track and improve turnaround times and win rates, significantly speeding up their quoting process compared to their previous system, which provided little to no visibility into metrics. Now, they understand the numbers: with Paperless Parts, their average draft-to-send time decreased 30% year over year.
• Prevent risk. By using Paperless Parts, KMM minimizes human error through automated formulas and processes. “We’ve set triggers and warnings inside the software so that if there’s a variable that doesn’t make sense, it triggers an alert to notify the estimator,” explains Sonny. “This helps reduce risk and prevent miscalculations.”
• Scale effectively. Since merging three businesses into one centralized location, it’s been important for KMM Group to also quote out of one centralized location. Doing so has allowed their team to stay organized and properly allocate opportunities coming through the door.