Industry insights, product updates & customer wins

A Canadian metalworking, fabrication, welding, and laser cutting enterprise, MSG Industries, has implemented a “game-changing software” to deliver faster and more accurate laser cutting quotes to its customers.

MSG Industries Vice-President, Olivier Samson, had been working with his team on developing their own quoting tool software, but it was not a cost-effective solution to the accuracy and time pressures the growing business was facing.

“We probably spent about $15,000 (Canadian dollars) and a large investment of hours developing a home-made system, but it just wasn’t performing to the level we needed to deliver better service to our customers,” said Samson.

“We did some research and discovered Tempus Tools, and it’s a game-changing software for us. Right now, I can’t imagine how we could get through the week without it,” he added.

MSG Industries, which prides itself on innovation, integrity, and professionalism, has been growing steadily since its inception three years ago, and to cope with additional requests for quotes, the company took on two full-time employees dedicated to quoting.

Tempus Tools, is an all-in-one laser cutting quoting software that is provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.

“Since implementing Tempus Tools, we’ve found it is much more accurate, reliable, and fast. Instead of two people quoting full time, we can now have one person do a better job in a quarter of the time, freeing up staff to work on other tasks that can further grow our business,” says Samson.

“As we take on more customers, and send out more quotes, Tempus Tools also gives us total pricing consistency, which means we build the trust of our customers. No one likes receiving two different prices for the same work, but if two different estimators manually prepare the quote, it can happen,” he says.

“Additionally, the service has been outstanding, which is rare these days. Every time I’ve needed assistance, the Tempus Tools team has been quick to respond and highly professional.”

New updates: pipe cutting

MSG Industries provides services to a broad range of industry, and is constantly looking at ways to innovate and expand its offering.

“Our strength has always been our versatility. We have a department dedicated to heavy structural fabrication, such as schools or hospital building pieces, another department for food factory equipment, one for hydropower products, and then we have pipe cutting and laser cutting services,” explains Samson.

“Since we have so many different departments, we need very reliable tools to help us quote, and Tempus Tools has been highly valuable to us.”

“Our major focus right now is working on our pipe cutting laser service, and Tempus Tools is already working on adding this functionality into Tempus Tools so that we can quote for this service too – it’s very exciting.”

Turning customer PDFs into quote-ready CAD files

Tempus Tools Director Felipe Lechuga says that the discovery of Tempus Tools PDF part extractor feature was a further benefit to MSG Industries.

“MSG had just been using Tempus Tools for creating new quotes, but when they discovered they could use the PDF part extractor to turn a customer’s vector PDF into a CAD file straight away with no tracing required – they were delighted with the results,” said Lechuga.

“The PDF part extractor doesn’t need any CAD package or skills to use, meaning anyone can simply click on a part and extract it into a quote. You can scale the part, plus specify details like folding and etching too.”

Olivier Samson says he can’t believe he didn’t try the PDF part extractor right away. “This is even more than we hoped for. Such a useful tool! I wish we’d tried out these features from the beginning.”

“I’ve found that Tempus Tools is reliable and fast, and Tempus Tools is actively working on updates, so we really couldn’t ask for more!” he concluded.

Secondary processes can help laser cutting job shops win customers and stand out from the competition.

But if they are not costed accurately, consistently, and efficiently, these processes could end up taking away the hard-earned profit from the laser cutting jobs.

If you’re costing secondary processes by having a customer service person walk down to the production area and ask a machinist for a time estimate – interrupting their current work – then these processes can cost more than they make you.

That applies to internal secondary processes, but what if you outsource these to an external company? Again, there are time delays involved, where the third party may not be able to provide a price estimate straight away, and the customer may have started to look elsewhere.

To make secondary processes profitable, and to use them to win more jobs, it’s crucial to have software that can provide fast, accurate, and consistent pricing.

Increased demand for secondary processes

There are a number of reasons why laser cutting job shops are seeing an increased demand for secondary processes, including:

• Complex product designs. As products become more complex, secondary processes are needed to help refine, finish, or modify parts to meet specific requirements.
• Customisation. As the manufacturing industry continues to experience demand for customised products, secondary processes enable job shops to meet these demands.
• Quality and aesthetics. Secondary processes can improve surface finish, durability, and overall appearance, thereby increasing the appeal of the finished product.
• Environmental concerns: Secondary processes can include environmentally friendly treatments such as powder coating or water-based paint, which align with the growing focus on sustainability and eco-friendly manufacturing practices.
• Competitive advantage: Companies are using secondary processes as a means to differentiate themselves in the market. Providing a one-stop solution for customers, including secondary processes, can be a competitive advantage.

Quote unlimited secondary processes with Tempus Tools

Tempus Tools has designed its multi-functional laser cutting quoting software provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model – to include unlimited secondary processes, so that quotes for a whole job can be completed lightning fast.

There are no complicated formulas required, so it’s simple to set up and even simpler for anyone to use. In the initial set up, the user can input an hourly rate and setup time, and use a measure type of their choice (which could be surface area, net part weight, or quantity, for example). These parameters can then be used to calculate a price per part, price per line, or price per process. It’s an all-in-one calculation that can be used repeatedly once it’s set up.

Secondary processes can include powder coating, folding, welding, machining, sand blasting, painting, rolling, galvanising, linishing, tapping, pemming, countersinking, protective masking, deburring, and clinching.

Miscellaneous services and charges can also be set up in the same way. These can include pallet fees, packing and handling, admin fees, supplier delivery, CAD design time, nuts and bolts, and freight – so that all costs are fairly calculated into the final quote provided to the customer.

Tempus Tools keeps the setup flexible but simple, so that each job shop can set it up to suit their requirements without dealing with complex formulas.

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Author: Bruce Thomas, Executive (Product)

For laser cutting job shops, staying competitive is essential to running a profitable business. But how do you measure that? How do you know where you sit compared with other job shops in your area, with a similar laser power, or with a similar service offering?

One way to understand your position in the marketplace is to look at your win/loss ratio. The Tempus Tools leadership team, which has more than 100 years of combined experience – extending from the job shop floor to the formation of entire laser cutting enterprises – has found that a typical win/loss ratio is about 30-40%.

This means, for every 100 jobs you quote for, you win 30-40 of them. But it’s important to consider not just how many jobs you win, but how profitable they were to your business. Here are two common mistakes we see:

1. Your win/loss ratio is under 30%, so you aren’t winning enough jobs. This can often be because your pricing is too expensive, and is not competitive with other companies offering similar services.
2. Your win/loss ratio is above 40%, so you’re winning a lot of jobs, but your pricing may be too cheap, and it’s becoming a lot of work for very little profit margin.

My win/loss ratio is off – what should I do?

The first thing all laser cutting businesses should consider is what they do best. This is usually what makes the most money, and achieves a long-term profitable business.

For example, you might specialise in cutting thicker materials. Your team might have good expertise in this area, can produce high quality jobs, and you have the right stock on-hand. In this case, you should look at accepting more quotes that involve thicker materials.

Other factors to look out for include:

• Material pricing. This is a significant cost for any laser cutting business, so it’s crucial for any job shop to maintain the correct margin.
• Hourly rate. This should be monitored all the time, and a long-term strategy should be put in place. It can sometimes hurt the business to drop your rate too much just to win a particular job.
• I’m losing too many small jobs. This could mean your setup costs are too high, making you less competitive with other job shops.
• I’m losing too many large jobs. This could mean you haven’t considered the discount others are providing for larger work, due to economies of scale.
• I’ve seen what other companies are offering, and wonder if I should lower my price to that level too, so I can win the work? This strategy is not advisable, because the other company might be cutting corners on quality, or might have an inaccurate quote to begin with. Nobody wins with a race to the bottom on price – that only favours those with poor quality and no backup. The metal cutting industry as a whole has a responsibility to maintain high standards of quality and service, which benefits both customers and job shops.

The goal is to achieve long-term profitability, not to compromise to win a particular job.

How do I keep all these figures accurate?

One of the most effective ways to win and retain business is to provide accurate and consistent quotes. But job shops use all sorts of methods, from manual spreadsheets to home-grown software, and these don’t always arrive at the right price, which can result in unexpected loss of jobs.

Tempus Tools conducted its own research and asked more than 250 users about their previous quoting methods. 54% of users in the survey admitted they had inaccurate quoting methods, which is indicative of the industry more broadly.

One solution is Tempus Tools, a multi-functional laser cutting quoting software provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, so laser job shops can achieve accurate and consistent pricing every time.

Tempus Tools is rules-based, so users can set rules for material cost, hourly rates, secondary processes, and other parameters required to create accurate quotes.

Tempus Tools has been designed so that anyone can use the program, with no CAD or CAM training or software required. Job shops such as Red Horizon Engineering have found this to be a great benefit, with owner Steve Geroski commenting, “Tempus Tools has been one of the smoothest and most intuitive programs I’ve ever used. This meant I could implement it straight away and start quoting for orders while continuing to set up other parts of the job shop.”

Frank Maat, owner of Rolleston Sheetmetal Engineering, added “I like that my laser machine operator and I can get an accurate idea of material usage, time, labour, and other relevant data for each job – and it greatly reduces the risk of human error, because Tempus Tools is a rules-based program.”

Hurstbourne Forge owner, Jack Swanborough, says “Tempus Tools is much better than anything we’ve used before, especially for larger and more complex quotes – and I like that it handles all the folding and secondary processes automatically.”

Conclusion – consistency and accuracy are key

If job shops are not running a quoting system, most of the time they are just guessing on pricing when they respond to quotes. This guesswork not only takes longer to complete, but can cause inaccuracies and inconsistencies that can lose business.

With Tempus Tools, users can set rules to keep pricing consistent and accurate, removing irritating customer issues when they receive two different prices for the same job.

So if you are looking to see how competitive and profitable your job shop is, take a look at your win/loss ratio, compare this with your profit and loss statement, and see where adjustments need to be made.

Our laser cutting quoting experts can help by providing seasoned advice on where minor changes can make a major difference to operations.

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Author: Bruce Thomas, Executive (Product)

Is software saving you time, or adding to your workload? If you feel it could be the latter, it might be time for business owners to conduct their own software audit.

If you’ve ever worked in, managed, or owned your own laser cutting job shop, you’ll know there is a huge range of software out there designed to help you do your job better, faster, and more efficiently.

When software is implemented and utilised successfully, it’s brilliant. It can take time-consuming manual tasks and turn them into some simple clicks of a button.

But if it is under-utilised, or just left in the background, software could be adding more time, rather than saving it, and that can hurt business productivity, efficiency, and the bottom line.

Software audits – what to look for

As a business grows, it can be highly worthwhile for owners and managers to conduct an in-depth software audit, to make sure you’re using these resources efficiently. Here’s what to look for:

1. Are you using the software to its full benefit? So often people just use a few of the basic functions, and don’t realise the software is capable of so much more.
2. Is there duplication of effort? Is someone doing it manually and then re-doing it via software? Or are workers having to do the same task across multiple different software programs? Look out for these counterproductive inefficiencies.
3. Does your software talk to other software? If so, it can create a highly efficient business workflow, but if not, it can sometimes create more work than it saves, because employees have to go to great efforts to transfer data from one software to another.
4. Is the software up to date? If you’ve paid for software, it’s important to keep it updated so that you can capitalise on the latest features and benefits, as well as keep it secure and functioning optimally, without bugs or errors.
5. Do you need all of these software programs? Sometimes, as technology advances, a new program is capable of performing multiple functions, which renders an old software obsolete, but this can go unnoticed. Worse, workers can stop using a software, but the business might still be paying the subscription fee. (In fact, according to a new working paper from researchers at Stanford and Texas A&M submitted to the National Bureau of Economic Research, forgotten subscriptions can boost the revenue of the business selling that subscription by as much as 200%.)

Return on software investment

For any software to be beneficial to the business, it must increase efficiency and decrease workload. Sometimes it does this by doing a process faster and more simply, and sometimes it adds capabilities that were not previously practical or possible.

It is helpful if it integrates or communicates effectively with existing software, and it is ideal if you plan to utilise the majority of the features it offers. Then you will start to see the best value for money, and the best return on investment.

So often we hear comments like this one, which came from a customer, “Most software that job shop owners will come across is both really complicated and also expensive, with long implementation times. This means you’ll spend months only to find out it might not fit, but by this stage, you’ve invested the time, so you put up with it.”

We knew there had to be a better way.

Tempus Tools – the laser cutting job shop’s multi-functional software program

Tempus Tools, is a multi-functional laser cutting quoting software that is provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.

With more than 100 years of combined experience in its leadership team – extending from the job shop floor to the formation of entire laser cutting enterprises – Tempus Tools designed Tempus Tools to not only increase laser cutting quoting efficiency, but to integrate with other software programs, and to perform a range of functions in one, saving the need to purchase multiple subscriptions or programs.

Tempus Tools can:

1. Split multi-file parts, delete unwanted paths, and perform other drawing issue corrections, which can remove the need to purchase a CAD software package in a lot of cases.
2. Convert a vector PDF into a CAD file instantly, ready for quoting, removing the need for manual PDF conversion tools.
3. Identify, extract, and unfold sheet-metal parts directly from 3D assemblies, which can remove the need to purchase a 3D software package (example pictured below).
   

2. Quote tube and pipe parts, handling RHS and circular profiles, saving you from requiring dedicated tube software.
3. Offer an online quoting portal for a job shop’s customers, removing the need for simple e-stores or complex custom software development (with credit card payments and additional secondary processes coming soon).
4. Produce production documentation, like work orders, delivery dockets, and part labels, removing the need for expensive production management systems.
5. Integrate with external applications, including accounting systems like Xero and QuickBooks.

Next in line for development is multi-part nesting, which will remove the need for separate expensive nesting software.

The Tempus Tools development team is constantly using customer feedback to develop new features and new integrations to benefit more job shops.

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Author: Bruce Thomas, Executive (Product)

After months of rigorous development and innovation, we’re thrilled to unveil the newest evolution of our quoting interface in Tempus Tools. We remain committed to enhancing your laser cutting quoting process. This fresh approach promises enhanced navigation, lightning-fast calculations, and a host of exciting new features.

We have collected your feedback and listened to your concerns and requests over the past couple of years, and our design team has used their magic to put together a quoting interface that takes Tempus Tools to the next level!

Watch our new Tempus Tools Overview video to see all changes in detail:

Read on to learn more about some of the enhancements.

Tailored sorting

You’re in complete control. Choose between the smart auto-sort feature or manually arrange parts using drag-and-drop for a seamless organisation that aligns with your preferences.

Material requirements and order summary

At a glance, get an indication of how many sheets you need of each material to fulfil the order. Additionally, the order summary details information such as the total order weight, processing time and part count.

Part notes for everyone

A dedicated section for notes, whether they come from your customers, your team, or personal reminders for a job.

Streamlined price adjustments

With our revamped interface, tweaking the prices of parts becomes an intuitive and quick task.

Extra quote details

From setting an RFQ number to determining invoice due dates, shipping options, and beyond – we’ve got it all.

Unified quoting screen

No more toggling between tabs. Every bit of information you need, all consolidated on a single, intuitive page.

Automatic calculations

Forget the constant back and forth with the Calculate and Edit buttons. Our system now recalculates on-the-fly, keeping up with your pace.

Sleeker interface

With a cleaner, fresher look, onboard new team members with ease and navigate your daily tasks faster.

Customer emailing enhancements

An integrated system to keep your customers in the loop for every quote status.

In short, quoting in Tempus Tools is now even simpler and smarter. We’ve made sure it’s user-friendly while still being packed with all the features you need. Dive in and check out all the new improvements!

Accessing the new quoting experience

If you’re new to Tempus Tools, you will get the new experience by default. Just create a Tempus Tools account to get started.

For existing users, you have a temporary period to switch back and forth between the old and new experiences using the toggle at the top of the quote page.

We believe the new quoting experience will significantly enhance your quoting efficiency, and we can’t wait for your feedback.

Quiet achiever Frank Maat specialises in bespoke and unique metal fabrication jobs, through his business Rolleston Sheetmetal Engineering.

Based in Rolleston, New Zealand (about 25km South-West of Christchurch), Frank’s company predominantly serves the agricultural community, including its suppliers and contractors, who request anything from large silos to storage boxes, to safety handrails, and everything in between.

Frank soon realised that he was spending too much money, and waiting too long, by getting laser cutting done by a third party, so he invested in his own laser cutting machine.

“I wanted to be in control of timelines and deadlines, so I could deliver more reliably to my customers, so I purchased a brand new laser machine. But then I had a new challenge – how do I accurately quote jobs?” said Frank.

After speaking with connections in the industry, Frank received a recommendation for Tempus Tools, by Tempus Tools, an all-in-one laser cutting quoting software that is provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.

“I’m not a technology person, so at first I was apprehensive about using a software, which I worried would be too complex. But Tempus Tools was very intuitive and user-friendly, and I’ve been really enjoying its features,” he said.

“I like that my laser machine operator and I can get an accurate idea of material usage, time, labour, and other relevant data for each job – and it greatly reduces the risk of human error, because Tempus Tools is a rules-based program.”

“Additionally, the Tempus Tools software is easily adjustable, which allows me to tread that fine line between being competitive and being profitable,” added Frank.

Rolleston Sheetmetal Engineering also uses secondary processes such as folding, powder coating, tapping, and galvanising, and Tempus Tools can include these in quotation calculations.

Tempus Tools Director, Felipe Lechuga, says it’s rewarding to help a small business like Rolleston Sheetmetal Engineering, which is focused on delivering the best customer service in the most efficient way.

“Businesses like this give us the opportunity to not only provide software that benefits the owner, but to also impart our knowledge from our own experience in laser cutting, so that they don’t have to make the same mistakes we once did,” added Felipe, who, in addition to his role at Tempus Tools, runs his own laser cutting business, Lemaco SpA, in Chile.

Outstanding support

In addition to a range of useful features, Frank has been impressed with the support offered by the Tempus Tools team.

“The support has been truly fantastic. Tempus Tools staff have helped me with calculations on my hourly rate, and every time I have a question, they are available promptly to assist me,” he said.

“It gave me confidence that the Tempus Tools leadership team all have decades of practical experience in laser cutting, both on the job shop floor, and at management level, so they know the sorts of challenges and opportunities I face with my business.”

Frank is optimistic about the future, but has humble plans for future expansion. “I’m not going to rush into growth, but I know the possibility is there, and I plan to go about it quietly. I know Tempus Tools will be able to grow with me, when I need it, because the same program can run more quotes and add different secondary processes as required.”

To learn more about Tempus Tools, please click here.

Rolleston Sheetmetal Engineering can be contacted on:

Ph: +64 (0) 29 771 7050
Email: office@rollestonsheetmetal.nz