About the Company
Beacon Industries is a high-end defense contractor that provides precision machining and assembly services to the defense and aerospace industries. Based in Dallas Texas in a 100,000 sq/ft world-class facility, they machine very large and complex aerostructures and assemblies for customers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon and others. Beacon utilized Epicor for 23 years, and like many typical AS9100 certified manufacturers, had a very paper-heavy environment. Every job had a large paper job traveler package that would travel with the parts through their facility. The traveler contained data including the job router, setup information, tool lists, BOMs, copies of material certs, hardware certs, etc.
When jobs would transit to outside processes, another copy of the document package would be created. And yet another for their source inspection process, scanning and reprinting the file when the job finally shipped. For an assembly with 10 levels of BOM, the paper package often contained hundreds of pages, stacking several inches thick. This was very normal to them and didn’t seem out of the ordinary. They also used a paper time clock punch card system for time tracking and job attendance. Everything was very organized and traceable, but in a nutshell, they were drowning in paper.
Making the Switch
Steve Jennett, President of Beacon Industries, decided that they needed to upgrade their ill-fitting Epicor system. ProShop became the front runner based on the specific machine shop functionality, largely because it was a paperless system. After a relatively quick implementation of just 5 months, the 60 person shop went live, experiencing immediate benefits.
Steve and the team immediately appreciated creaing native content and documentation within ProShop. They had an easier system to attach files, review documents, and streamline workflows, with less paperwork to manage their jobs. The benefits of this would soon reveal themselves.
A meaningful application of this new capability presented itself just 2 months after going live. They were scheduled for a PAR (Post Award Review) meeting with one of their largest clients, Raytheon. The PAR process is a required process once a contract is awarded, and before a purchase order will be issued. It’s an in-depth audit and review of the supplier’s business processes and quality management system. The audit ensures all contract flowdowns and requirements are handled without unexpected challenges.
There is a lot at stake during these meetings. They had been given “sternly worded feedback” according to Steve, by Raytheon on their previous PAR review. The previous Epicor-based system had a lot of inherent risk. Beacon was expected to improve their process and reduce the risks inherent in the system.
“Raytheon always had full confidence in the robust manufacturing and quality processes at Beacon. They were less confident in the management of documentation and paperwork side of things,” noted Steve.
80% Reduction in Review Time
The PAR team from Raytheon scheduled a 3 day review of a new RAM (Rolling Airframe Missile) system contract. When the audit began within ProShop, the Raytheon team was curious about what improvements this new system would offer. As the Beacon team navigated the browser based and paperless system, they were able to review all the built-in processes. This included contract reviews, risk mitigations, and additional documentation—all achieved in seconds.
They immediately knew this audit was going much better than previous ones. Steve and the team breathed a sigh of relief when they saw the smiles and meaningful nods of the review team. Just 5 hours into the 3 day audit, the PAR review was done!
“The Raytheon team was absolutely blown away! They LOVED ProShop. They told us they had never been through such an easy, seamless and fast PAR audit before.” said Steve. “ProShop represented a significant improvement in our management processes. They grew more confident in us as a supplier to perform flawlessly. It was a huge relief, and underscored that we had chosen well with ProShop!”
Eliminating the Inherent Waste
Raytheon requested that access to data for individual employees be configured and locked down. Steve was able to demonstrate this capability of ProShop with the “Log-In As User” feature. Steve was able to log-in as the janitor at Beacon, who is not an ITAR approved employee. He successfully verified that no sensitive data was accessible to that employee. All technical data, drawings, attachments, were completely locked out.
This represented both a much more robust capability than their prior Epicor/folder structure system. The process was easier to manage, freeing up employees to work on more value added tasks.
With the review a success, Beacon received the purchase order for the RAM system. ProShop proved itself time and time again by eliminating all the inherent waste with a paper and folder based system. The project moved faster through the shop, and required less overhead to manage things.
“Employees no longer need to browse through our mapped network drives and folders,” said Steve. “Everything they need is linked directly in the browser, and available based on their permission settings. It saves vast quantities of time for our team.”
Steve and the team were very pleased with the reduced overhead and faster workflows afforded by ProShop, but some of the most meaningful improvements were still ahead.
96% Reduction in Document Preparation
Steve and the team were amazed at how much ProShop simplified managing various machined components and working processes.
“When we used to assemble document packages for source inspection and shipping it took us 45 minutes minimum for just a single part number, and between 4-8 hours for a more complex assembly,” Steve noted. “Now with ProShop, it’s a single click, and those times for a single PN are 1-2 minutes and about 10 minutes for a large assembly of 30-40 total levels of BOM. That’s about a 96% reduction!”
There was some resistance to change. For example, the QA Document Specialist was afraid she was going to lose her job. Steve reassured her that she would not lose her job. Instead, she advanced as a Quality Engineer, providing a lot more value to the company.
“Now anybody can do document prep. It’s a matter of clicking a single button and the pre-configured options will do the rest. ProShop even warns us if there is a missing document that needs to be a part of the document package,” Steve said. “We’ve saved a full time overhead salary just with that one feature alone. It’s a game changer!”
Speed Improvements Everywhere
In the prior system, releasing a job to the floor took several steps, requiring 3 hours of elapsed time. Here are the steps they used to take:
- Print off the traveler and the full package of supporting documents.
- Deliver that package to the quality department to review and issue material certs.
- QA would look up the certs and add them to the document package and initial that step of the router.
- Deliver the package to the inbox of the Shop Foreman.
- The Shop Foreman would review the document package, initial the router for approval.
- The Shop Foreman would then deliver the traveler to the material handler.
- The Material Handler would then find and pull the correct material that matched the certs.
- The Material Handler would then deliver the material and router to the shop for manufacturing.
With ProShop, and having no paper traveler the process looks like this:
- When the work order is issued, QA, the Shop Foreman and Material Handler all get immediate alerts with a link directly to the ProShop WO.
- They can electronically sign off their step of the process concurrently while the material handler pulls the material that is already linked to the job.
- Manufacturing is alerted and can see that the WO and material is ready for manufacturing.
“The new paperless process in ProShop takes about 15 minutes of elapsed time in most cases, saving us many hours per week, and allowing our team to get started on our Work Orders much faster than we could in the past,” noted Steve.
Saving Trees and Money
The amount of paper that Beacon used to consume in the past was staggering. They bought paper by the pallet load, using heavy paper stocks that would stand up to the shop environment better. Document packages required multiple copies at different times, consuming hundreds of unnecessary pieces of paper per job.
When crunching numbers for what their savings were, a conservative estimate would be $11-15k per year on paper alone, and another $6-10k in toner and printing expenses.
“So we are saving around $20-$25k in printing expenses on the low end,” said Steve. “We are saving more in just paper and toner than our ProShop subscription costs us per year, it’s a no-brainer.”
Beacon also completed a scan and purge to eliminate years worth of old paper documents. They successfully removed filing cabinets and bankers boxes, freeing up valuable floor space repurposed for other purposes.
Soaring Customer Confidence (and Orders!)
After the very successful PAR meeting in November 2021, the Raytheon team was so happy with Beacon’s new system and ability to deftly handle very complex flowdowns and contractual requirements, that they quickly awarded 3 more contracts to Beacon.
“The next 3 PAR reviews were even easier than the first one we did in ProShop. Now that their team is familiar with how ProShop works, we fly through the PAR reviews,” said Steve. “The last one we did took 1 hour instead of the normal 3 day process it used to take. Now we spend more time touring the shop, our new equipment and capabilities, and talking about more opportunities. Any concerns that Raytheon had about our old system have completely evaporated. I’m confident that our usage of ProShop was a major contributing factor to them awarding us those 3 new contracts so quickly!”
All of Beacon’s clients who have seen the new system have been very impressed. Besides Raytheon, SpaceX and others have also been able to review Beacon’s new processes. All have given enthusiastic approval of the improvements that will allow Beacon to serve them better as customers.
“I would say that across the board, client trust in us as a key supplier has gone through the roof,” said Steve. “How do you put a price tag on that?”
A Bright Future at Beacon
With several more months of ProShop under their belt, the team at Beacon is utilizing even more features in ProShop and realizing benefits in many new places. “I can finally trust the data I see in ProShop,” said Steve. “I didn’t have that level of confidence in our old system. This allows us to make better decisions to push the company forward. We’re very excited to continue using more advanced features in ProShop. The ROI has already been overwhelmingly positive, and it’ll just continue to get better the more we use the system.”