This video clip was pulled from an upcoming episode of Cutting Through the Noise, a podcast by Paperless Parts’ CEO and Co-Founder Jason Ray.
When material prices began changing rapidly during COVID, All Metals Fabricating went from rarely requoting repeat work to requoting every job for a year. In this first-person customer testimonial, All Metals CEO Lance Thrailkill explains how Paperless Parts helped the team handle roughly 10 times its previous quoting volume and grow 20% without adding an estimator. He also shares how standardizing the process has helped employees without sheet metal experience get estimates 80–90% complete before senior review.
Read the full transcript below
Jason Ray: Anything else people should know about AMF before we sign off here?
Lance Thrailkill: Yeah, that we love Paperless Parts. I would be remiss not to give a shout-out to Paperless Parts. You didn’t ask me to do that, but when we implemented Paperless Parts, it was right after COVID, and all the material pricing was going crazy.
We build anywhere from 300 to 500 different jobs a month. Historically, material pricing had been very flat. As long as we were making good margin on it, we didn’t have to requote things hardly ever. So we went from never requoting stuff to having to requote every single job for a year.
That same year, we got a bunch of new business. We would have never been able to keep up with the demand of quoting and grown—I think that year we grew, call it, 20%—and we didn’t add an estimator. So we were basically able to 10x our quoting. Now, quoting a repeat job is a lot easier and quicker than a new part, of course. There’s that, but still, the volume was massive.
We would have never been able to do that without Paperless Parts. I’m forever grateful. I’ve been on record saying Paperless Parts is one of, if not the most revolutionary pieces of software in the manufacturing scene. I believe that statement.
I think a big benefit of it is that it forces you to do the exercises we’ve been talking about earlier in the podcast: How are you quoting this? Is everybody quoting it the same way? And no. If you’ve got five estimators, there’s a chance you can get five different prices.
But by standardizing the way you quote and understanding your cost inputs better—which your team is great at helping handhold us through—you basically build the software around that. That’s what’s so unique about Paperless Parts: It’s all custom to you and how you quote.
Then there’s y’all’s ability to scale the way that you have while still making custom software for every single customer. It’s quite revolutionary, honestly. But for us, standardizing that methodology, because different account managers and estimators have different risk thresholds, and automating it in a way that really helps us.
We’ve got two ladies who do estimating now. Historically, we would only hire very experienced estimators, but one of them was a finance major and the other one was an executive assistant. They had zero sheet metal experience. Now they can get it 80% or 90% of the way there. Dealing with weldments and assemblies is a little bit more challenging, of course, but their learning curve has exponentially grown because of Paperless Parts.
They can get it 80% or 90% of the way there, and then the senior estimator comes in. Instead of spending four hours on, let’s assume it’s a giant assembly—you know, if it’s a sheet metal part, it takes nothing—they just saved four hours. They’re just coming in, reviewing it all and putting the final touches on it. That’s a big win.
I’m a big fan of you guys and a big fan of you. I have a good relationship with a lot of your team over there, and you’re a phenomenal leader. I’m just grateful for y’all’s partnership. It’s been a fun ride, and it’s fun to see you guys always…
Yeah, that was one thing I didn’t mention earlier. You may be paying the annual fee every year, but the reason is because you’re constantly pushing updates. You’re constantly improving. You’re constantly helping us. If we need to change something—change a rate, whatever—y’all are teaching us how to update it ourselves, but also doing it for us.
It’s a great product, and anybody with a job shop should definitely consider—and I would say purchase—Paperless Parts. But get the buy-in from your estimating team first. Buy-in is critical.