Do your continuous improvement activities include the front office?

Metal fabricating companies will spend countless hours and money in trying to find new efficiencies on the shop floor, but are they applying the same critical eye to front-office operations? A webinar can provide details as to how these companies can whip their quoting efforts into shape. Getty Images

If you are a regular reader of The FABRICATOR, you are familiar with conversations about continuous improvement activities intended to make the shop floor more efficient and seamless. Topics include pull manufacturing, where parts are made only when the downstream manufacturing process requires them, keeping aisles clear of work-in-process; cross-training, which allows for employees to cover for each other at different machines and workcells, which keeps production flowing even in the face of unscheduled absences; and 5S, where reference materials, equipment, and tools are organized in such a way that they are easy to find and don’t require someone to go looking for them. Of course, those topics are a few examples. As any manufacturer will tell you, continuous improvement never ends, and the coverage of the subject likely won’t end in the pages of The FABRICATOR anytime soon.

The interesting point, however, is that most of the focus of these improvement initiatives is the shop floor. Are metal fabricators placing the same focus on front-office activities?

The stakes are just as high, if not higher, because winning new business is crucial to not only keeping the pipeline filled with work, but also ensuring that it’s profitable. Without accurate and profitable quotes, a shop can get into trouble really quickly.

The challenge for most shops when it comes to quoting is collecting the references that are used to create the quotes in one specific place. Data could be found in emails, spreadsheets, sticky notes, or old spiral notebooks. There’s no guarantee that the same RFQ will result in the same answer if it is prepared by two different estimators.

In these paper-based environments, efficiency is lost every time a piece of quoting intelligence is saved in another place. Experts call this the creation of a “silo of information.” Co-workers describe it as something they are unaware of until they are told about it and that they are likely to forget about just as quickly.

Quoting is too important to leave up to these kinds of variables. Software can help to reduce the potential for errors and create that one repository of institutional knowledge, instead of multiple experts that might not have the best communication or organizational skills.

Jason Ray, co-founder/CEO of Paperless Parts, the developer of a software platform designed to improve quoting accuracy and response time for metal manufacturers, is leading a webinar on Tuesday, May 18, at 2 p.m. ET, where he’ll show shops how to centralize quoting knowledge and connect the front office to the shop floor to drive efficiency and reduce risk. Fabricators interested in attending “Escape Your Share Drive: How Sheet Metal Fabricators Can Create a Digital Thread That Connects Their Front Office to the Shop Floor” can sign up here.

A fabricating company is stronger when everyone is taking steps to improve. The front office needs to be part of the journey as well.

Continuous improvement activities are good for all parts of the fab shop, not just the shop floor. A webinar can help the front offices of metal fabricating companies improve their quoting activities.