my name is chris guidotti and i am the vice president of east branch engineering

my name is brandon da silva i’m a cnc machinist here at east branch engineering my name is jared capsiak i’m a cnc

machinist who runs setups and a variety of parts

through this company everything from tiny little stuff to huge stuff and it’s all intricate it’s all super

precise and we use proshop 24 7 and it’s fantastic

so i joined the company in 2003 full time having worked my summers

the first time i cut metal i was 14 years old in high school so about 24 years now

i’ve been a machinist for about five and a half years now

oh i’ve worked in about 10 shops previously i’ve worked professionally at two

different shops and volunteered at two others i do a lot of metal work in my life

so years ago my father was working for a large company manufacturing plastic parts for the

medical industry that company decided to stop doing that work and their customer approached my father

to start producing those parts in his spare time he formed the company in the basement of

my childhood home and ever since then we’ve been growing the company to what it is today

so each branch specializes in short run production of complex milled and turned parts we’re

known throughout the area as the problem solvers so oftentimes a company has difficulty

producing a part they’ll come to us and we generally find a cost effective way to produce that part

so years ago we used to run job boss and then we switched to e2 shortly thereafter and

e2 was working for a while but as the company grew and our customers requirements

grew we found ourselves spending more time managing the system than managing our business it

eventually got to the point that we were spending several hours a week just managing data

and getting customers the information that they needed in order to grow the company we knew

that we would need a new system that could grow with us and handle the challenges of the increased regulations

so our search for a new system took about two years we did demos of probably a dozen systems

so we signed up for an hour demo and it ended up being over two hours going over

just even the contact page took us 20 minutes just to go over all the all the information on the contacts page

so we had that one hour get get to know pro shop that turned into two hours

um and i even remember during the interview or that that first meeting calling my father

into the office to say hey you got to check this out

yeah once we did the demo i think we signed up maybe a month after that there was no other software we were

looking at

yeah all the systems wanted you to fit your business into their system

they wanted you to change how you ran your operations how their system worked didn’t always

align with how we conducted our business when we saw proshop there was enough

flexibility in how the system was laid out that it was an easy transition to just move all our operations over to proshop

so when we started looking at implementing a new management system we saw the trend to a data managed

company we couldn’t run the business on gut feeling anymore and we needed hard data to make decisions and proshop

is able to bring all that data together and easy to view yeah so overall it was the total management of all our data

that really helped us choose pro shop

we were fortunate to have kelsey and brian as our implementation team and i remember they were here before we

were every single morning of the implementation they were here before we started and

they were often the last ones to leave when we were doing the implementation you got a sense that they understood the

problems we were having if you ask them a question because they ran a shop and they were in the shop for

so long they already knew the answer they can offer their experience on how they did it or how they solved a particular

problem their expertise in pro shop is unmatched um but it was that other side of

you know we had the same problem when we were running our shop this is what we did to handle that that was enormously helpful so we did we did a

remote install so the system was up and running before they got here so once they were here we wasted no time

training and generating work orders and parts

we were making work orders uh the day they left on implementation we ran both systems simultaneously our

old system and pro shop just to make sure the output was consistent with what our customers were expecting

but there was virtually no lag time to actually working in the system after implementation

yeah within a week of training pro shop we were making work orders and working out of the system

we were supposed to run parallel for four weeks but we found that pro shop was handling

the workload significantly easier than our old system so we only ran the systems together for about two weeks

we replaced countless spreadsheets with proshop we tried to count we

couldn’t they’re always little inventory sheets for this project or that project

so you know virtually all those separate excel sheets are gone we don’t use them anymore

yeah with the old system we were doing double entry so we would generate all the documentation in in e2 and then generate it again in

quickbooks with proshop we generate the information one time in proshop

and we sync it to quickbooks so we eliminate all the double entry we were doing

well i got to go back to basics on this and it was the paperless nature um it wasn’t uncommon with the old

system to chase down paperwork you know where’s the traveler was the common question

and as soon as we turned pro shop on being able to view all the information all in one spot and manage updates the

information was enormously helpful

yeah so proshap has streamlined our operations in the office by bringing all the information together in

in one easy to use location no longer do we have to go to the file cabinets to pull prints

out all the information we need to get a product running is available

as soon as the order is placed we’ve saved hours just tracking down paperwork the

most current blueprints current pricing or even operation lists

so have we seen a reduction in the time it takes to generate a work order and the short answer is no the other

system is very easy to generate a work order but what’s more important is the lead

time to actually act on the work order so we can generate a work order and actually start producing parts

two to three weeks sooner than with our old system

in our old system when a work order was generated it would often sit on a desk and wait for someone to work on it with

proshop when a work order is generated notifications are pushed out to whoever needs to work on it

because notifications are sent out work can start on a work order much sooner than previously because of

the planning tools in proshop we’re able to gather tools materials

and any specialized processes before the work order even makes its way to the production floor so the time it takes to actually start

producing a part is reduced

after we installed proshop we started to find some holes in our previous processes and it became

clear that some roles that we had here weren’t providing any advantage to our customers

one such role was purchasing we had a dedicated purchase person but after running with proshop we found

that we didn’t need someone dedicated solely to buying material we were actually able to eliminate the

position completely and still manage to reduce the lead time to our customers

proshop has allowed us to streamline our processes in the shop in a number of ways using visual work instructions and

partcheck info we’ve been able to communicate clearer with our machinists on the floor and get jobs

running a lot quicker there’s no longer the question of well what did you do last time

all that information is stored so anyone can access that information and work on parts

using the tools in proshop we’ve been able to reduce our setup times by over 50 percent using photos of setups written

descriptions part trick info and sequence details we’ve been able to

pre-load as much as we can of the job before it makes its way to the machine setups can be a tremendous weakness in

your overall scheduling because if you’re asking

questions of how do i do this how do i do this i don’t remember this have we changed anything if you’re just going from memory there’s

so many opportunities to make mistakes but because absolutely everything can be

documented there’s it just makes your process faster you’re not guessing

i do this i do this i do this everything’s in sequence everything’s detailed everything’s organized so you’re absolutely gaining time and

efficiency and effectiveness because everything’s so well documented

using the tools in proshop we’ve been able to reduce our quality by over 30 percent

our first pass quality is over 99 using proshop we use partcheck info and the first

article data to ensure that all our parts meet our customer specifications the first time

using the quality tools in pro shop we’ve been able to increase our first pass yield from 80 to over 99.

so before using proshop ncrs were treated as a black mark once we installed proshop ncr’s became a

tool that we can use to track quality trends issues with any machining processes or

even any training issues that we we come up with part of our management review now is to use pareto charts

and the ncr data to really hone in on areas over processes that we need to focus on

before pro shop we had a combination of paper file cabinets and folders on our server with proshop

we’ve been able to streamline how that data is stored outside of the system it’s worthy to note that the amount of

files we have has reduced significantly once we installed pro shop we no longer have setup sheets images

and scrap paper with notes all over them all that is stored digitally in pro shop now

so we’ve greatly reduced the number of files that we even need to manage

in proshop when you create a new part proshup will automatically create the folder structure you need to manage

all the documents associated with the part so the file management becomes as simple as dragging a file

into the correct folder that that’s already there we no longer have folders with different names

every part has the same structure so it’s a lot more uniform and everyone is aware and knows where to

put parts we can access all the part information from the proshop part page with a simple

click pro shop has had a huge impact on our

final inspection process final inspections before were sometimes an all-day affair

now with proshop it’s a simple click of the button to enter the data or even generate reports based off of in

process data with proshop all the information that the inspector needs is available on one single page and it

can be printed with the click of a button the inspection aspect is absolutely fantastic

again it’s it’s isolating your variables it’s repeatability you’re not wondering what’s changed from

the last time you’re running a batch of parts every single detail of what you need to look at is

there you can compare results from every single time you ran that job it’s a complete record of the data that

was collected you can defend your process you can reevaluate your process if you find an issue you can

analyze it for patterns i mean everything is right there it’s really superb there’s just there’s no questions the

guesswork is taken away it’s and it’s a fantastic record of you know how did we create this process

can we troubleshoot it can we make it better well let’s look at the data and you’ve got everything in front of you

proshop is able to pull together the document package including material certs and vendor certs with the click of a button

pro shop can even retrieve the certs for any sub components of a top level assembly

with our old system it was very difficult to track on time delivery with proshop we’ve been able to maintain

99 on time delivery for our production orders

our machinists have adapted very well to the paperless system at first there was some

hesitation about not having a print in front of them but once they realized the amount of

information that they have available it really helped them understand what the system is and how

it can help them in generally like all the information that they have so they can make decisions easier and

without tracking down a manager

the tools that proshop offers is like i said very intuitive keeps you organized a lot

better than i guess you would without it that’s for sure everything’s very user friendly

you’re able to access a lot of the informational points or sections i guess just to keep

track of your own your productivity the quantity of parts tooling

um revisions of blueprints it’s a lot of different options for i guess keeping yourself organized

especially with pro shop i think the greatest strength here is that you’re removing so many of the

variables you know you’re not dealing with with picking up other people’s messes you’re

not picking up something halfway through trying to figure out if you have all the paperwork if there’s forms missing if

if there was a detail that’s super critical from the last time you’re running this project that’s now missing

because there was no traceability there was no data input the fact that we can record everything

that we can itemize everything and make every single tiny or supercritical detail repeatable

and available every every time we need to access it in the future is the absolute greatest strength so

you’re not asking the same question more than once unless you i mean there’s there’s no reason to

you’ve got it you you figure it out for the first time and then you’re good forever so the only evolution is hey how

do i make this better you’re not reinventing the wheel every single time you do something over and over you’ve just got

traceability and and data management and the systematic

approach just takes away the guess factor so it’s it’s really phenomenal it’s a breath of fresh air

yeah during the actual interview process we had we sat down and we were going over how pro shop

functions and all the available options that you can use with it for tracking traceability

efficiency and that was actually one of the large reasons i decided to work for east branch engineering

was their usage of proshop and just the way you can organize with the system

if i was speaking to a machinist that was nervous about starting the usage of proshop who was

already used to a paper environment i i would say not to worry at all

it’s extremely intuitive very easy to use if you’re already used to working in a

production environment and you’re keeping track of your parts and you know jobs already then you should be able to

basically drop right into pro shop and you know set sails and go no i

this is the first shop i’ve worked at in a paperless environment

no i i never want to go back to paper once you use proshop i almost want it to kind of organize my

life honestly pro shops made my job easier by being

efficient super intuitive to use very straightforward i enjoy the

organization of it again the efficiency of how it works being able to keep track

of everything the traceability the thing that makes everything easy and

straightforward is that everything has a place everything is so categorized and systematic that

it’s a question of how detailed do you want to go down the rabbit hole everything can be taken care of

everything can be managed it’s just a question of putting in enough information so we can keep track of every single

detail it’s just a question of putting it in and then everything becomes a procedure you know you do it once and

you can do it a thousand times after that everything’s taken care of so really there’s no guesswork the

second time or the 500th time it’s all right there we just have to put it in

the way pro shop works seems to be much more proactive than reactive in my experience

so far you’re able to look ahead plan ahead

record said items or details i think it’s just a better organizational system altogether than

trying to do folders or file cabinets it just gets much too cluttered

especially with revision changes and you know especially nowadays everything’s on the fly so it’s good to

be able to be up to speed i suppose because i can access the system and everything’s there

it’s like pulling a book out of a library with just the information of hey what part am i working on okay i can pull up

blueprints i can pull up specs i can pull up procedures i can pull up photo and video of of that project being

done in the past so everything’s perfectly recorded so as long as

the information’s in the system i’m not asking questions that make me stop i can just go go from beginning to

finish and that’s the beauty of it it’s just you open it and everything’s at your fingertips

using a paperless system like proshop makes tracking changes significantly easier we don’t need to

track down paper copies on the shop floor any changes that occur are pushed out to

anybody that needs to know

one of the surprising things about going paperless was how many issues we actually had with paper when

you’re living in a paper system there are things you do that you do not realize you’re doing once you go paperless you start finding

yourself having free time because you’re not tracking paperwork down and i think what was surprising was the

amount of time we were actually taking to manage paperwork

so we’ve seen employee satisfaction actually increase once we install pro shop one of the

major complaints with our previous systems was employees didn’t know a lot of the information they needed to

do their jobs now that they have all that information available employees are generally a lot happier

so we use proshop as a sales tool now we show potential customers and even existing

customers the system and how we’re managing their data we had the case of a customer come in

for a shop tour and we showed them proshop and they were blown away by how much information we had available

we showed them live data on the parts we were running while they were here

and they were amazed that we can even show them material certs or inspection data for parts that were

actually running while they were sitting in the conference room one of our customers was going through improvement initiatives

and one of those initiatives was to pare down their vendor list and we were dual sourced on a number of

parts and after a site visit and seeing our system compared to their paper-based system we

were awarded the sole vendor for that part and subsequently increased

our business with that customer two times

so we recently were re-certified in iso 9001 the auditors absolutely loved proshop

they had commented that it was the most audit-friendly system they had ever seen traditionally before an audit we would

spend weeks preparing documentation with proshop we didn’t prepare at all

they walked into a live system with live data and we were able to answer the audit questions without any issues

for manufacturing companies that produce complex parts with complex inspection requirements

based on all the research we’ve done looking at other systems and the systems we that we’ve actually

run proshop is the only system we would use going forward i would recommend any company looking

for a system to look at proshop

so with pro shop the onboarding for a new employee is very short with the training materials in pro shop

an employee is on the floor working in work orders the day they are

hired proshop came pre-configured with an org

chart that we can use to onboard employees very quickly the positions are compliant with and in

line with iso requirements and we’re able to get employees on the shop floor producing parts quicker

what feature can’t i live without with proshop that’s a hard question i think every feature that we use helps

us in our daily work life i think what i love most is that at any point in time there’s a

place for everything every single detail of what you’re doing

can go somewhere so you can pull it up later and find it there’s no questions you do it once and you’re done

it’s perfectly recorded it’s perfectly organized everything’s layered everything’s lined

up so you don’t lose anything so whether you’re doing something in a week or five years down the road

everything’s there you’re not losing any time regardless of how many times you do the same project

with proshop we’ve been able to increase our throughput by about 25 without adding additional employees or

machinery we’re able to get work done quicker which means we can get more work through the machines

than ever before

i remember one point where we had a two month backlog in lathe work and the lathe department had stopped

coming to me parts were parts were moving out the door but i didn’t really talk to the guys that much

and i remember one day they came up to me and they said hey what’s next and i said what do you mean what’s next

i said well we finished the backlog you know we need the next couple work

orders and i was shocked because you know i had very little interaction with them and

because of the planning and because of the material being there on time the tooling being there on time

they were able to autonomously work through that backlog and i was shocked

when we were running our previous system there was always this idea of catching up the tooling had to

catch up we had to overnight tooling because the job was on the machine waiting for

tooling we were spending thousands and thousands of dollars on overnight shipping charges or

you know sending guys to pick tools up at the vendor with pro shop we’re able to pull the tooling in before the

material makes it to the machine by proactively planning our work orders we’re able to

increase our machine utilization by having the right tools and the right material at the right time

we’ve seen double-digit sales growth while using proshop while also increasing our margin

significantly if i can go back and talk to myself when our shop first

needed an erp i would say don’t wait don’t hesitate don’t think you can get

by with what you’ve got the benefits of a system like proshop far outweigh

any implementation challenges you may have

do we have a sense of the roi on our pro shop purchase i mean i don’t know like the amount of

savings we’ve seen between overnight charges increased sales due to spindle utilization

decreased lead times i mean pro shop has paid for itself several times over

do i think pro shop is expensive the short answer is no the benefits to running pro shop and the

cost savings far outweighs the cost of the software other softwares that may cost less

don’t offer the same features and i would bet that you’d be managing that system more than you would

be managing pro shop

so do i feel less stressed running pro shop well i’m in manufacturing so i’m always stressed

but i will say that i’m able to focus more on running the business than putting fires out like i was with

the previous systems we’re a lot more proactive and a lot of times the stress that you have in

manufacturing comes from just handling issues that come up but with proshop we’ve been able to

to address those issues before they become problems so in general i’m much less stressed

i’m a lot easier to get a hold of and talk to and i’m going home a lot earlier which

you know my family thinks

yeah i think the value of our company has increased after installing pro shop just the gain in sales alone

has really given a boost to the company’s value but really the value of a company like ours comes down to our

employees we’re able to use our employees a lot more effectively so that right there

is is really where the value in manufacturing comes from you know anybody can produce a part but

being able to effectively use your employees that’s where you generate the value so

using proshop and the tools with proshop we’ve been able to give our employees an

environment that they can grow and learn in and are generally much happier

i’m excited for the next couple years of east branch we’ve positioned our company for growth and we’ve got the right

people on board now so you know the new technology we’re implementing the new customers we’re picking up it’s

a very exciting time for us

if i were to talk to another shop owner currently doing research on erp systems i would tell them to look at

the company behind the system does that company know what it’s like to run a shop the team over at proshop

have run shops before they’ve been in the same shoes so they understand the problems that you’re facing

i remember when we were doing our search for software and the implementation every single question or issue we had

they had run into before you know the system is the system but it’s the support and the team behind

that system that are going to make you successful

i could not do what i do here without proshop proshop is absolutely the backbone of

how we operate it’s integral to our efficiency and our level of high

performance it’s absolutely revolutionized how i look at

being a professional machinist it’s it’s a godsend it’s fantastic yeah

absolutely a game changer

pro shop is absolutely a game changer we couldn’t run the business the way we run it now we couldn’t see the same growth without

pro shop it’s changed how we run everything it’s absolutely a game changer pro shop

is 100 game changing it makes you faster it makes you more accountable it makes you

more efficient it takes away worry it allows you to eliminate problems before

they even happen it just makes you better because everything’s there the more information

you put into the system the better it it makes you the better it helps you

i’m having trouble complimenting the system enough it absolutely is a game changer

pro shop gives us the opportunity to get better at what we do

so you’ve provided a system a tool that becomes part of our process

and when you make us better we can use pro shop more efficiently when we can use pro shop but more efficiently

we get better at what we do so it’s this constant supportive system of evolution i have everything i need i become better

at what i do if i have questions if i’m running into problems i can go back look at everything i can look at my

procedures i can look at my data i can look at my documentation i can find areas where i can improve so i’m

constantly using the system that’s available and i’m constantly evolving and improving from it yeah it’s it’s really

terrific and it makes it makes us better every single

day do i love pro shop yes pro shop makes my life a lot easier

it makes coming to work a lot easier and really able to do a lot more exciting things so i love pro shop i love the team at pro

shop and i couldn’t see it any other way i do i thoroughly enjoy using pro shop

again just the way it’s organized the intuitiveness of it the ease of access to different modules

um we have a saying around here trusting the system and we definitely trust in the system

seems to be working excellently thus far no i actually i do love it like i said if i could have it

for my life to organize you know your normal day-to-day operations i i definitely would use it

so yeah you could say i love using proshop oh i absolutely love using proshop

i think every shop that does anything that they want to be good at should be using proshop it’s absolutely fantastic

yeah i want pro shop for my homework shop it’s it’s wonderful it’s absolutely

perfect my name is chris and my shop is powered by proshop

you