Video Transcript: Metalmite Corporation Customer Testimonial

About this testimonial:
This is a first-person customer testimonial from Tom Gendich, President and Owner of Metalmite Corporation, a Paperless Parts customer and CNC machine shop. In this video, Gendich describes how Metalmite moved from a paper-based quoting process to Paperless Parts, improved quote turnaround times and collaboration, and gained better visibility into quoting performance. The transcript below reflects his spoken comments from the video.

Source type: First-person customer testimonial video

Product discussed: Paperless Parts manufacturing quoting software

My name is Tom. I’m the President and Owner at Metalmite Corporation, a CNC machine shop. I’m third generation. My grandfather had a shop in Detroit, and my father moved just 25 miles north, and I bought him out about 10 years ago.

 

The reason we found Paperless Parts and we use them today is because, as a small organization, we had three people involved in estimating and quoting parts. Everything came in from a fax to a letter that was mailed to a napkin sketch that was dropped off, and we had piles of paper everywhere.

 

We literally had no idea what we were working on. I didn’t know what the other three estimators were working on. They didn’t know what I was working on. So I was very frustrated about it, and I was trying to figure out how to have a working queue.

 

And I thought if we could have a queue that was digital, online, of what quotes we’re supposed to be working on, what questions we still have, we would be able to be more efficient. We’d be able to talk to our customers about the questions we have, where we’re at.

 

We found out that we do an average of about 200 to 300 quotes a week, and a large percentage, 20 to 30 percent of those, we were not completing on time. And by having that statistic, we found out we were missing out on a large chunk of business.

 

So we started talking to our customers and said, what needs to happen to make us get some more work? And they said, you need to respond faster.

 

Internally, we said, in order to respond faster, we need to get our material pricing, our machine estimates, everything in the queue and through as fast as we can.

 

I was talking to a friend of mine, and he heard my frustrations and he saw my desk, my piles of paper everywhere, and he said he had just seen a demonstration online of Paperless Parts for quoting.

 

So I looked them up, and I saw the quick one-minute video, and I fell in love with the idea right away. A cloud-based system where all requests come to one area, you have a working queue, your own estimation team can collaborate with one another and collaborate with the customers, and you can, in turn, offer a guarantee, whether it’s 24-hour or 48-hour guarantee, for getting these quotes back.

 

So I signed up right away. We’ve had it now about two years, and it’s been fantastic.

 

We get all of our requests coming in that way. Even if somebody comes in the door, or, you know, we don’t have a fax anymore or a napkin sketch, but however it comes in, it’s scanned digitally, put into the platform. All of us can see what the request is, how we’re working on it, and we can collaborate with one another.

 

With COVID times especially, it worked out really well. All of us were working remotely from home. I could monitor on my cell phone. I could check in on my laptop, iPad, and we made sure to continue getting these quotes back to customers.

 

Not only did the working queue help us, but extra value-add that came from the Paperless platform was the parts viewer.

 

We got these digital models in STEP files, IGES files. We were able to see all sorts of features that normally we had to send back to our CAD department, and they had to open to show us. So now we were seeing that firsthand within seconds.

 

We were also able to click and highlight a certain area, collaborate back to the customer: this area is going to be difficult, or this area is going to require a special service that’s going to cost more.

 

And we were able to design for manufacturing and start bringing the prices down, help our customers and help us by being able to see the solid model together.

 

Also, a value-add from Paperless is the algorithms that come as automatic pricing. We didn’t think that was going to work in our areas. We do some pretty high-end military and aerospace work. But when the algorithms started estimating, we found them to be about 85 percent accurate.

 

So there was plenty of times when we were inundated with quotes, not able to go with it. We just let those numbers go back to the customer. We got some of those jobs, and those worked out well for us.

 

So again, the estimation tool of estimating our time for us.

 

We also do 3D printing, and estimating for 3D printing can be difficult, but not with the Paperless tool. They’ve got a couple formulas in there. We can go right through. We typically offer a one- to two-hour turnaround for the pricing for the 3D print people.

 

So all in all, we’ve been really happy with the package of how we get the quotes in. Our customers have been really excited. Several of them have called and said they love being able to see the model in the quote. They click on it and can manipulate it and see it on their end.

 

The collaboration tool, internally as well as externally with our customers, has been second to none.

 

And we found that the ability to revise a quote, upgrade a quote, change a quote has really helped us get work, and it looks professional, and we win it faster than we’re used to.

 

So we’re very excited about Paperless, what it’s done for our business.

 

We’ve seen an additional $10,000 to $20,000 a month coming in from credit card orders from people we normally wouldn’t work with. But because they come, they find us on Google, they go to our website, get a quote, we just don’t take the time to qualify their financials. We just say it’s a credit card order. They purchase it right online. We make the part and UPS it to them.

 

So that’s been an incredible value-add to us as well.

 

A policy that we use as a shop is that if we’re not winning 25 percent of the work we’re bidding for any particular customer, we talk with the customer and tell them, you know, we’re not sure we can continue, or we really need to maintain 25 percent.

 

Formerly, we had to take that data from an ERP system and put it into Excel spreadsheets and calculate it. And, you know, monthly or quarterly, we would have to review and get back.

 

Paperless Parts has an analytics button literally at the top of the screen. We click it, and it tells us what we’re winning for the customers, when, and we share that information.

 

I just used that information on two different customers last week, letting them know they were falling below the 25 mark, and we were concerned. We needed to find out.

 

And right away their response was, you know, let us see if we can get you some more orders.

 

So that’s always our goal, to get more orders and to win more work. And to have that data at your fingertips real time has been really key for us.

 

The most surprising thing my team found in working with Paperless is how flexible they are and how quick they are to respond.

 

Our experience with other ERP systems, we currently use E2, before that we had JobBOSS, our experience is that they were not fast to respond. We were in a queue waiting on technical support, sometimes days, and we could not get a problem resolved.

 

I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than five minutes. And Paperless Parts has an instant chat option, they have an email option, and they have their phone number.

 

I’ve always been able to get a hold of some technical support, and they usually have a solution for me either already figured out or they’ve created some custom solutions for me in a very short period of time.

 

So I would say give them a try, and I don’t think you’ll be sad.

Transcript attribution:
Tom Gendich, President and Owner, Metalmite Corporation