Fast quoting system helps give laser cutting shop a competitive edge

Situation

Australia-based Lasercut Solutions is a family-owned company with more than 30 years of experience in industrial laser cutting. The company supplies components to a variety of fabricators and manufacturers, with capabilities including laser cutting, engraving, line marking, and CNC profiling.

“We have a broad range of customers across a variety of industries, and they require fast quotes to compete in their respective markets,” said Gary Cabot, owner.

The company had been pricing laser cutting jobs using an Excel-based quoting system developed in-house, but with the growing volume of quotes, the process was slow and tedious.

“Quoting times would vary depending on the amount of work required, but we knew it was taking up too much of our time,” Cabot explained.

Resolution

After trying different types of software, Lasercut Solutions discovered ToolBox by Tempus Tools.

“ToolBox gave us a fuss-free and simple-to-navigate quoting system,” Cabot said. Right from the beginning, we found the interface very user-friendly, and setting up the system with our business requirements was straightforward.

“We have noticed most quotes take a few minutes to return to the customer, regardless of the amount of detail in the job,” he continued. “We can deliver fast and accurate pricing, which allows us to maintain a competitive edge in the market.”

According to Tempus Tools CEO Ivan Cooper, that speed is crucial to business growth, because laser job shops, on average, win 30% to 40% of all jobs quoted.

“If you’re winning less than 40% of all jobs quoted for, an effective way to grow the business is to reduce the time it takes to produce each quote. Our data shows that the average number of line items is 5.5, and average time per line is five minutes. That’s 30 minutes per quote. Using ToolBox, the same quote would take just two minutes,” Cooper explained.

The rules-based program enables lesser-skilled service staff to prepare and issue quotes. Highly qualified CAM specialists and press brake operators don’t need to leave their productive tasks to assist with quote preparation.

“We found the system to have enough flexibility to tailor to our needs, in contrast to other software we trialed, which became cumbersome with the amount of data entry required,” said Cabot.

Recent updates to the program include integrations with Xero and QuickBooks, as well as availability on the AutoDesk app store. And a tube quoting feature will be released soon, allowing users to create quotes from a STEP file without using a solid modeling program. Updates like these often are inspired by customer suggestions.

“We worked closely with the Tempus Tools team throughout our trial period and into our subscription,” said Cabot. “They were extremely responsive and receptive to new ideas. We have been happy to see some of our suggestions already implemented into the ToolBox system, and other ideas on the development list.”