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Hirsh Precision was founded in 1979 with just one employee, a single manual machine and a commitment to continuous improvement. For example, even from its early years, Hirsh sought machinery that would improve operational efficiency. When the company began producing hundreds of parts at scale three years into business, Hirsh invested in CNC machining to increase productivity. Hirsh saw CNC machining as a way to replicate efforts, produce high-quality parts and eliminate dependencies on any one machinist. This mindset would continue to open doors for the business for the next four decades.
Today, Hirsh has grown to seventy-five employees, including a continuous improvement manager who is dedicated to Hirsh’s efficiency and growth. The ISO 9001, 13485 company offers turning, milling, supply chain management, inventory management, assembly, and more to help its customers bring their products to life.
In its quest for efficiency, Hirsh was constantly identifying areas for improvement. In the early days, quoting was a notoriously time-consuming operation for Hirsh because they relied on paper prints and manila folders. Steve Hirsh, founder and VP of Engineering, knew that their quoting process needed to be streamlined. However, at the time, there were few solutions on the market that specifically optimized the quoting process.
Eventually, Hirsh purchased quoting software that offered some improvements, but required a high level of detail and lots of training to operate. Hirsh was spending far too much time on the front end of every quote, even though they would only win a percentage of them. As a result, depending on the part, it took two to eight hours to complete an individual quote. This turnaround time would not satisfy buyer expectations and could ultimately lose potential jobs.
Knowing that today’s customers want fast responses to their quotes, Hirsh was determined to prioritize its turnaround time rather than over-engineering quotes down to the penny. They needed a way to reduce the time spent on each quote so they could respond to more RFQs, meet buyer expectations, and increase the chances of winning more business.
Hirsh had been using its legacy quoting software for years, but was looking for a more effective option, the company discovered Paperless Parts. Hirsh found that Paperless Quoting offered several more features than the legacy software. Paperless Quoting was also very user-friendly, so more employees could be trained on the system. Most importantly, Hirsh loved that Paperless Parts could leverage the company’s years of legacy manufacturing data and cycle times to deliver quotes much faster.
Hirsh implemented Paperless Parts in July, 2019, as its primary quoting software. Paperless Parts transformed Hirsh’s quoting process, making it faster and completely seamless for both end users and customers.
Using Paperless Quoting, Hirsh:
Hirsh leveraged Paperless Parts in its commitment to continuous improvement. By optimizing the quoting process, Hirsh was able to save thousands of hours. With employees freed up to be more strategic, the team reinvested this time in business planning, the employee experience and customer service. This one investment is a testament to the way Hirsh runs its company – efficiency in one area truly can impact the entire business.
“Paperless Parts sped up our quoting process and leveraged all our historic data. A few extra minutes doesn’t seem like a lot, but it makes a huge difference with our customers. Today’s buyers want to move quickly, so it was important that we prioritized turnaround time over a highly engineered quote.”
Steve Hirsh, Founder and VP, Engineering