This from Fab Shop Magazine (October/November, 2020) There’s a lot to like about that fabrication shop that you walk into every day – from the press brake in the corner to the fiber laser you purchased a few years ago. And you have to be excited with the talented new welder you just hired; and don’t forget about that new nesting software that’s going to cut those piles of scrap in half. Now all you need are jobs to run.

“Machines and metal processing services are obviously important,” says Brad Stropes, COO at SecturaSoft. “These things set you apart from competitors. But, as critical as they are, none of them matter without sales. Because of this, most managers take an active hands-on role in sales support, and companies generally assign some of their most tenured employees with estimating responsibilities.”

The downside of this strategy is that fab shop owners and managers are responsible for a myriad of business tasks, including overseeing daily operations, evaluating capital purchases, forming alliances, managing the supply chain, hiring new staff and so much more. Time spent chasing material prices, calculating machine run-time and pulling together the other details needed to quote a job detracts from the other things they need to get done. What’s more, this manually intensive approach leads to quoting inconsistencies and inefficiencies and has top talent allocating most of their bandwidth to one area of the business.

However, fabrication shop owners and managers will find that automated quoting software frees them up to concentrate on running their businesses while feeling confident that accurate, complete and winning bids are going out the door.

Read the Article here.