Datacraft Solutions in Fabricating Metalworking

According to North America’s leading manufacturing journalist, Thomas R. Cutler (), “Recent estimates suggest that more than a third of all metalworking and fabricating manufacturers engage in some type of lean-manufacturing initiative. There are many variables that drive the goal of waste elimination, none as keen as the need to be competitive in a global economy. As manufacturers implement these lean programs, they are bringing a key element of lean—kanban—into the fray in a seamless way: online."

The February issue of Fabricating and Metalworking Magazine () in the “online exclusives" section includes a feature article regarding digital kanban featuring Datacraft Solutions. Cutler provided a detailed understanding of how digital kanban solutions are critical to an effective lean manufacturing initiative and provided a case study that featured Datacraft Solutions ().  According to Matthew Marotta, Founder of Datacraft Solutions, “We do not charge for upgrades to the system as we learn about new best practices that clients ask us to incorporate.  Before Datacraft incorporates the request, it is reviewed buy a lean advisory board to validate the value of the best practices and the value added impact upon our partner community.  Once it is passed, they develop, test, and implement." 

With digital kanban, all production is now initiated based on the immediate needs of customers.

Inventory turns for digital kanban parts are now at 62 turns per year. Time spent by customer service communicating on expedited parts issues has practically been eliminated. They estimated that customer-service staff was spending 40 percent of their time on just expediting part orders, as well as the chaos that this created on the shop floor. Sales have increased because the company no longer uses capacity to build parts without an order to buy now. One-hundred percent of production capacity is used to build parts that are already sold as soon as they hit the shipping dock.

The hosted solution provides the customer with their own set of servers which are maintained offsite by and outsourced set of administrators.  All of the administration fees, equipment, support teams and software updates are all included in the monthly service fee which is less then the cost of hiring an internal system administrator.  The value of an ASP is that manufacturers can buy “by the drink", low risk, and a see a rapid ROI.  Only internet access is required. 

Datacraft Solutions

Kelly Pryor

800-819-5326