Diversified Manufacturing Technologies (DMT) Case Study
Diversified Manufacturing Technologies (DMT) is a modern and technology driven machine shop in the Pacific Northwest. Owners TJ Quale and Seth Tromburg bought the shop from the previous owner in 2010. The previous owner had been running a dirty and disorganized shop that was barely breaking even and was using an old paper based legacy ERP system to run the shop. Things weren’t organized and were not going in a positive direction. Orders were often late, had cost overruns and quality problems and employees were quitting in droves. Seeing an opportunity, both Seth and TJ who worked as machinist/programmers for the shop, starting talking about buying the shop. They came to an arrangement with the owner and bought the shop, renamed it and focused on the most profitable customers. They kept only the best machines and let the previous owner sell off the older equipment. With this renewed focus on better controls, customer service and being selective about bringing in the right kind of work, things started getting better. But TJ and Seth didn’t like the E2 ERP system and felt like it was a weak link in the company. Their biggest complaints about the software were:
- No tooling catalog to organize all their cutting tools
- Very cumbersome inventory system
- Bar code scanning was not easy to use
- Managing material traceability was very poor, took lots of time and was error prone
- It was very cumbersome to use and required many screens and mouse clicks to find basic information.
“On paper, the software had lots of the right features, but in reality it was not good. It felt like it was designed back in 1980 and was never updated. Software should help streamline things in our shop, not slow things down” said TJ. “We also kept having to close it out on one computer to open it up at another.”
When they’d finally had enough of E2 and decided to replace it, TJ remembered a paperless system he had used at a previous shop he worked with that was far more modern and powerful. They called up the team at ProShop Canada Inc and signed up for ProShop Cloud ERP. Their company is fortunate to have fast and very reliable fiber internet, so they decided to use the Cloud SAAS version of ProShop rather than installing it locally. The implementation team at Adion configured their ProShop build according to their preferences, did training with the employees at DMT and went live shortly after that. “There were no up-front costs, no servers to buy. And being web based, we can open ProShop anywhere with no software to load. It’s been so easy!” said TJ.
Immediately DMT knew they made the right choice. ProShop has complete tool crib management integrated, an intuitive inventory system, being 100% paperless barcoding was no longer an issue, and ProShop’s material traceability system is second to none in the industry. DMT had already set up workstations at every machine so employees could now access digital work instructions and enter in QC data for FAI and in-process inspection.
“With E2, it was like we were always down in a trench with our data. We had to go down one path and then back out and go down another to find more information. With ProShop it’s like we have global overview of everything at our fingertips” said DMT president TJ Quale. “And the customer service has been absolutely top notch. Even though we are a smaller shop, it’s obvious that Adion cares and wants our feedback. They care about providing us with great service and they want to hear our opinions about the software.”
