Customer Success Story : Denver Machine Shop
How a Generational Machine Shop Sustains 10% Year-over-Year
Who is Denver Machine Shop?
Denver Machine Shop in Henderson, Colorado, is known for heavy industrial repair, as well as being a prototype machine shop. Being family owned since Fred White bought his partner out in 1916, they are a generational business in terms of its ownership, but also its employees. As Scott White, president, says, “Being a generational business is not just our family, but it’s the families of all of the employees that have past knowledge of all we do from one year to the next.” There are several father-son teams, and they love having that continuity in the office and on the shop floor.
The current owners of Denver Machine Shop are Scott and Eric White, identical twin brothers and Fred White’s great-grandchildren. Scott and Eric bought Denver Machine Shop from their parents in 2002 with the aim of growing the shop. They were very successful at that. In 2001, the shop made $1 million in revenue, and they took that up to $7 million in revenue in 2020 with Denver Machine Shop and Kendo Inc., a business they bought in 2016. However, they didn’t grow that revenue just by buying another shop.
The challenge
In 2007, Scott and Eric realized that they would not be able to grow the shop as much as they wanted with the outdated paper system they were using to track progress, items, and processes. Scott was also worried they were losing out on crucial business metrics, like knowing how long a job took to run. Since it was hard to get all their information in one place, it was difficult to know if their data was complete and accurate, especially in terms of billing to the cost of a job. They knew having all their information in a digital database would make it easier to find things than having a paper system, and they would also be able to quickly check on everything happening in the shop, they decided to get an ERP system.
“Moving forward, [JobBOSS²] allows us the record-keeping and ability to see things in real-time so that we can make faster and better decisions concerning the direction of the company.”
The solution
Scott and Eric decided on E2 SHOP, an ERP built specifically for job shops. However, a few years later, they opted to move to the cloud and adopted E2 SHOP in the cloud which is now JobBOSS² from ECI Software Solutions. When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, they looked back on moving to the cloud as a lifesaver. Scott says, “I’m glad we made those investments several years ago and got up to speed, because during this time, it’d be pretty hard to run the business using your own servers.” Now, they can have people easily working from home. When asked about being in the cloud, Scott replied, “It’s the way to go.”
He was a little hesitant about changing over to a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, but, as he said, “The benefit of being on the web certainly overrides that. Right now, I’ve got people working from home, and they run (the software) from home. They can just get on their computer and do it.” Despite the pandemic, Denver Machine kept the shop running and its employees safe.
The impact
When a shop is small, it’s easier for everyone to have greater insight into what goes on. But when a shop begins to scale, having a close eye on how things run can become more difficult. For example,
occasionally Denver Machine Shop will ship a job that they have not billed. In the past, they might never have known to follow up on the billing. However, now that they have JobBOSS², once a week Scott can run a report to compare shipped vs. billed and make sure they get paid for the work they do.
“[JobBOSS²] has helped us sustain 10% year-over-year growth over the period of a decade.”
JobBOSS² has also helped their shop grow. “(It) has helped us sustain 10% year-overyear growth over the period of a decade,”Scott relates. Those are the kinds of numbers a shop loves to see! And, as their shop has grown, they have been able to sustain that growth with the organization and tracking that JobBOSS² offers. Scott says, “I believe we’re more accurate in our job costing and in capturing the actual time and materials that go into a job to allow us to bill for it appropriately. ”From helping them reach their goals, to finding the source of problems, to solving problems before they even happen, Scott is so glad they use JobBOSS². The software has helped support their shop and, Scott says, “I know we can’t live without it now.”
“I know we can't live without [JobBOSS²] now.”
JobBOSS² has helped Denver Machine Shop grow over the years, and Scott wants their shop to keep improving. “Moving forward, (the software) allows us the record-keeping and ability to seethings real-time so that we can make faster decisions, and better decisions concerning the direction of the company. I would like to try to take some of the reports that are in the software and center my KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) around the reports that are valuable to us and help steer the ship. It’s a very, very powerful tool to help you to manage your business better.” Denver Machine Shop is on course to weather what comes ahead and to grow in future years, and JobBOSS² will be there to help make that happen.
10% YoY growth sustained for a decade
Profitable billing thanks to accurate job costing
Shipping vs. billing discrepancies caught on weekly basis
