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 ToolBox, by 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.
ToolBox, by Tempus Tools, is an all-in-one laser cutting quoting software that is provided using a SaaS (Software as a Service) model.
“Since implementing ToolBox, 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, ToolBox 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 ToolBox 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 ToolBox 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 ToolBox’s PDF part extractor feature was a further benefit to MSG Industries.
“MSG had just been using ToolBox 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 ToolBox is reliable and fast, and Tempus Tools is actively working on updates, so we really couldn’t ask for more!” he concluded.