Scalable Software An interview with Mike Baron of Jett Cutting Service Bedford Park, IL (708.458.2700) December 1999 -- Jett Cutting Service (Bedford Park, Ill.) is one of the largest cut-to-length processors in the country, both in terms of the number of precision machines operating in the shop and the variety of services it offers. As its name implies, Jett offers cutting services. In addition to lathe cutting round tubing and band saw cutting solid bar stock and structurals, they also offer circular cold saw cutting and an array of secondary operations such as de-burring, and chamfering. Though Jett is a very specialized business compared to many make to order job shops, the company has found its niche; and the business, which cuts as many as 700,000 pieces a month, is growing, according to Jett Vice President, Mike Baron. Steel service centers offer their customers Jett's cut to length service as part of the sale, enhancing their own customer service, and creating a specialized business niche for companies such as Jett. "They want to offer more than just the steel to their customers. That's where we come in," Baron said. "They include our service as part of what they offer their customer. The fact that fewer users want to do their own cutting has helped our business grow. Unless they can keep a cutting department busy all the time, it becomes a very costly burden, so the service centers offer their customers a savings by saying, 'eliminate your cutting department and buy from us.'" That strategy has paid off for Jett. After two recent acquisitions the company boasts over 70,000-square feet and has 50 employees. In fact, business at Jett is going so well it doesn't have an outside sales force. The search for new business, a segment that represents approximately 20% of its total work volume, is limited to a modest advertising campaign, according to Baron. "We do some advertising, but we don't have a sales force out on the street. Most of our jobs are repeats," he says. "Our best salesman is our customer. We find that we get most of our new business from referrals by existing customers." That kind of customer loyalty is one reason Baron places such an emphasis on service. The shop's priority on serving the customer is one reason Jett has always used up to date technological resources. Through the use of its computer system, Jett tracks historical data on jobs and customers, as well as those which are currently moving through the system. In addition to tracking capability, Jett also required a flexible vendor and a program scalable enough to perform the functions it needs without forcing the shop to use more of the system than it wants or needs to. Jett has found such a program. Jett has used computers for its job tracking functions even longer than it has been using its current system, Visual EstiTrack from Henning Industrial Software. However, according to Baron, Jett left its first software vendor in the mid 90's when that supplier's support lagged and it failed to keep up with emerging technologies. "The old package was less comprehensive, with little support available – if you could get any at all. And they weren't growing with the times," he recalls. When Jett decided to look for new software, it found several large and rather costly shop control programs that Baron refers to as 'full turnkey'. The company knew it didn't need all of the features offered, and it certainly didn't want to pay the price that was being asked for them. "The sales agency that was showing us another product, which was very high priced, saw what our needs were during the interview process and said, 'Well, we've got something else for you,' and recommended EstiTrack to us," Baron said. "Price was a big selling point, and it had everything we needed. Since then, Visual EstiTrack has become as comprehensive, if not more so, than the full turnkey packages. It offers everything, but is very price competitive." At the time, no further capital investment for hardware was required for the installation of the new shop management software. Four full time employees now use the software on a Novell network. "The installation went really well," Baron recalls. Willing to accept no less than the caliber of service he offers his customers, Baron knew Henning would be the type of vendor he could work with on a long-term basis. As part of the installation process, the software firm was able to extract data from the old system and import it into EstiTrack. "Henning's people were able to figure out the database formatting and get it to work with their program, so we didn't have to start from scratch. There was a lot of information in there that was still current and we used every day. They extracted it and got it to work in their program. It saved us a ton of time entering information. They were willing to work with us and had the capability to do that, which was impressive." Jett quickly learned to tailor use of the modular software to meet its needs, using the modules that increased efficiency and ignoring those that it did not need. For instance, because most jobs for which the company bids are straightforward cut-to-length orders with some de-burring or chamfering, Baron uses a simple spreadsheet for his quotes instead of the system's in-depth estimating module. At the point he receives a purchase order and the material, he transfers the bid into the shop control system and uses it to create a shop order. "All of the information we had in the quote file transfers to the order area, and becomes the order. We can then create the routers that go to the shop that indicate which machines it will run on," Baron said. Because so much information is stored in the program, it makes it easy for Baron to create detailed shop routers, complete with an area for instructions and notes on jobs, a feature Jett makes extensive use of. "You can get very specific in the body of the router – where to cut it, what length to cut it to, whether or not we need to de-burr it or clean the chips off the part, information about machine, RPM, and the cycle time," Baron says. He adds that one feature that is "very useful" is the ability to record a note on a job in the main quote file so it will appear on the order each time the job repeats. When Jett receives material off the truck, the quantities are verified and the paperwork is forwarded to the office. There a data entry person inputs the data, matches the order to the material received, verifies the quote, and creates the shop router. Once the job goes to the shop floor, each operator uses a job ticket to track such vital statistics as time spent on a job and the number of parts cut. "We enter production data daily, which is key for this program. We can tell, just by pulling up an order, what our efficiencies are, if we're profitable, and the item's delivery status. We can tell how many pieces of an order have been completed to this point. It's important that production data is entered daily, if not after every shift. That keeps you fully up to date on all the orders in the shop," Baron said. That information provides Jett's management with the data it needs for scheduling and other internal activities. It also allows Jett to offer the service it is known for among its loyal customer base. "We constantly have customers calling looking for their orders. In the old days it would be, 'OK, let me take the information and I'll call you back.' Now, anyone at a terminal can see how many parts are done against an order and give them a quicker answer, accurate up to the previous shift," Baron says. Those quick answers are a product of the system's search capability. Jett employees can quickly look up customer codes and any necessary customer information such as the orders that customer has in-house at a given time, or what quotes have been given to that customer over the years. "Visual EstiTrack has a very thorough search capability. There's a lot of information accessible at your fingertips," he said. For billing purposes, information on each job is transferred through an interface from Visual EstiTrack into Jett's accounting software. The shop uses the popular Peachtree accounting package, one of several accounting programs to which Visual EstiTrack can pass information. Baron says Jett has had great success using the interface to transfer information into its accounting software. "Henning provides the intercommunication compatibility so you can download the sales information from Visual EstiTrack into Peachtree and it works without a hitch," he said, reconfirming the fact that superior customer service is one reason Jett has continued to use Henning's products. "Their support is excellent. |
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