Sithech Customs Increases Win Rate to 90% with Paperless Parts

Background

Sithech Customs is a CNC machine shop owned and operated by Michael Nicholas. He started the company after teaching himself the basics of machining, coding, and CAD.

Michael set out to build a precision machining company to help entrepreneurs bring their prototypes to market without the frustrations of high costs and overseas quality issues. Sithech Customs offers 5-axis CNC machining, CMM reporting, and in-house finishing. The shop is ITAR registered, ISO 9001 compliant, and working towards AS9102.

Challenge

Sithech Customs struggled to provide quotes and track key business metrics while managing and executing production. When quoting new jobs, Michael relied on Xometry’s pricing, even for RFQs that came through other channels, such as his website. He wasn’t sure what his actual costs or margins were or if his prices were even accurate.

When he wasn’t using Xometry to generate quotes, he would manually input data into an Excel spreadsheet, which wasn’t efficient or effective. “It was monstrous and ridiculous. It just wasn’t working for me,” Michael said.

Neither quoting process was conducive to scaling his business. He knew he couldn’t continue relying on Xometry or wasting time using a spreadsheet.

Solution

When Michael heard about Paperless Parts from a friend, he was confident that it was the solution to his quoting challenges. “When I logged into the Paperless Parts website, I knew right away that it was exactly what I was looking for. I needed something quick and accurate. There was no hesitation for me at all.”

With Paperless Parts, Michael’s win rate increased to 90%, compared to less than 50% when he was quoting manually and with Xometry. “I went from having a process that’s ridiculously long and bloated versus one that feels like a Ferrari,” he said, adding that Paperless Parts is faster and smoother for his customers, too.

Paperless Parts also allows for more customer interaction in the quoting process: customers can see a 3D model of their part, choose what they want to buy, and make purchases through the software.

Results

With Paperless Parts, Sithech Customs:

• Increases their win rate. Sithech Customs wins 90% of quotes using Paperless Parts, compared to less than 50% with their homegrown quoting system.
• Spends more time on value-added work. For Sithech Customs, reclaiming the time spent on quoting to work on production or customer acquisition is invaluable. Manual quoting for a small job could take up to 20 minutes, but using Paperless Parts produces more accurate quotes in 3-4 minutes total.
• Improves customer relationships. Customers report being satisfied and enjoying the platform—they especially like seeing models of their parts as part of their quotes. Greater transparency is particularly valuable for customers who aren’t engineers or mathematicians.

Paperless Parts’ fast and accurate quoting technology enables Sithech Customs to win more business, reclaim valuable time, and increase customer transparency and trust. Using Paperless Parts also gives Michael more independence from Xometry now that he no longer needs to rely on their estimates. With the Paperless Parts platform, he’s better equipped than ever before to scale his shop.