About the Lane4 Precision Case Study
Dan Fifer from Lane4 Precision expects excellence in anything he’s associated with. He buys high quality equipment, makes perfect parts, builds excellent business processes, and wants his software systems to be excellent as well. He also hates looking for things that should be easy to find. More about that later…
Dan’s background is as an engineer in the medical device industry. Lane4 designs precision machined parts for medical device products. With years of experience, Dan has a detailed understanding of how to design and procure those parts. He also has a working knowledge of his part suppliers.
The Opportunity: Building a Best-in-Class Business
Dan started to see an opportunity to switch from the demand side to the supply side. He opened a precision CNC machine shop to give medical device manufacturers exactly what they need. Dan’s vision was to build a world class manufacturing facility focused on building best-in-class business processes. He wanted to scale the company with fewer admin people and provide value-added work to his clients.
Months of research went into finding a facility, choosing the right equipment, and selecting software to build his business operating system. Dan wanted to start with a robust software platform where he could build solid business processes. Unfortunately, he was struggling to find a single paperless system from which he could build his business. Every software was cumbersome and difficult to use.
When Dan found ProShop, he found the system he had been looking for. He was just a one man shop at that point, but ProShop allowed him to achieve his vision.
The Benefits: Centralized Job Tracking Data
One of the appealing aspects of ProShop was just how quick and easy it was to get setup. He launched into the training with his dedicated implementation specialist, Luc. Together, they worked on job estimating, order entry, planning & programming. Later, they moved into purchasing, shop floor management and scheduling, and eventually shipping and invoicing. As he started to use it, Dan was impressed with how easy ProShop made it to get things done.
ProShop offered improved flexibility to start a project and link all the information easily. He often starts a project by estimating and quoting the work. Then he converts that quote into a customer purchase order.
He can easily respond to an urgent request from a client and order raw material. Then, he can work backwards, make a work order, client PO, and part. The ease of which these modules and records link to each other makes it totally flexible, yet still easy to build a robust set of records by which to perform audits to, and to build his processes.
“Everything is totally linked and I can find anything I want with a couple of clicks. Old estimates, old purchase orders, work order records, everything is at my fingertips. I hate having to look for things and with ProShop I don’t have to, it’s all right there!”
The Incentive: Master Modules, Scale Business
Unlike some companies adopting ProShop who ease into the more advanced features, Lane4 quickly adopted some of those features including a feature called “Sequence Detail” to document their tool lists for specific operations in the Part module of ProShop.
“The ability to document the exact configuration of the tooling on our swiss machines, makes our setups go faster and they are more repeatable with less experienced employees able to set up those jobs. I understand that some companies wait to use those features until they are further along their implementation, but I saw that as a crucial tool for us from the beginning.”
Over the past year, Dan has begun hiring employees and finds it very easy to onboard new employees. With a little bit of training, they are up and running and performing with in the manner Dan wants them to work – with excellence and consistency.
“I feel confident that when I show a new employee how we work in ProShop, that “this is how we do things here”, they will perpetuate that mindset of having world-class processes. We’re also setting things up to be scalable with the least amount of overhead.”
Making sure that a shop always knows what items are needed, and when, is an important feature of ProShop. When shops can make sure all their purchased items arrive on-time, it’s easier to ensure higher spindle up-time, and increase revenue.
“I find the purchasing dashboard in ProShop to be super easy to use. When we get new orders, all the materials, hardware and cutting tools will automatically show up on the purchasing dashboard. We can get them ordered in a very short time, ensuring they will arrive when needed, as well as tracking all the job costing.”
The Outcome: Time Saving Business Benefits
Lane4 has found a creative way to link ProShop into its email system. By saving a relevant email to a record in ProShop (a very fast process), they can just click the link, which immediately opens their Outlook email program and allows them to see the relevant email and reply directly from there.
“It’s a big time saver. And it allows us to quickly see a relevant email from the context of the project, and then reply to a customer on the spot…Again, without having to go look for it.”
Another function that Lane4 uses extensively is the Part Archiving and Process Development features in ProShop. Dan documents exactly how they set up the job, inspect parts, and more project development capabilities. The Process Development feature documents all the changes and improvements to the process within the active part record. It creates a permanent record of the changes before and after the archiving process.
They can pull up the exact parameters of how a batch of parts are made instantly. They document the evolution of the process, which clients appreciate. It gives them a competitive advantage over other vendors who can’t provide this level of detail.
A major next step for Lane4 is to become ISO 13485 certified.
“Our medical device customers expect us to have this certification, and the fact that ProShop has all the modules to manage it, was certainly a factor in choosing ProShop. We are using ProShop’s Flying Start Package, which comes with a complete Quality Management System already pre-configured with all the requirements to meet the 13485 standard. It’s going to save us huge amounts of time, and our QMS consultant has been very impressed, and told us he’s never seen a more complete yet easy to use QMS system.”
Lastly, Lane4 has recognized the sales potential of ProShop in landing new customers. When a company comes to audit them, the foundation of the audit and shop tour is how everything revolves around ProShop.
“We run a world-class operation and execute consistently. I didn’t expect to be able to use ProShop to win customers, but it certainly is a bonus. The team at ProShop has become a true partner for me, helping me get this business off the ground with great tools, solid advice from their own years of running a machine shop, and helping me build Lane4 into the company I envisioned even before I started it.”