Laser cutting quoting software helps job shop cut through the competition

(From left) Red Horizon Engineering owner Steve Geroski with business partner Joe Pozzuto.

Automation is often presented as taking jobs away from human workers, but Steve Geroski, owner of Red Horizon Engineering, sees it as a company builder for smaller businesses.

"When I established my own job shop for engineering, maintenance, equipment design, and laser cutting, it was software and automation programs that allowed me to maintain efficiency and quality to match the larger players—it's what gave me a chance to be competitive," he said.

After 17 years as a senior operations manager for a major tire and rubber company, Geroski decided to establish his own engineering company with a 6,000-W CNC fiber laser. The machine can cut 1-in. mild steel, 1/2-in. stainless steel, 3/8-in. aluminum, and 1/4-in. brass, along with titanium and other metals.

"There is a huge demand for laser-cut materials here in Ohio and surrounding areas, especially from heavy industry. But I just don't have time to manually quote all the orders while establishing and managing all areas of my business," he said.

To avoid the headaches of using spreadsheets or clunky interfaces to quote jobs, Geroski started doing research into software options.

He found ToolBox, a rules-based quoting software from Tempus Tools designed for laser cutting job shops.

"ToolBox has been one of the smoothest and most intuitive programs I’ve ever used. This meant I could implement it straight away and start quoting for orders while continuing to set up other parts of the job shop," Geroski said.

"I could easily train my business partner Joe to use the software when I’m not here, and as we expand in the future, training new staff won't be a time-consuming exercise. The software is well laid out [and] it has point-to-click functionality."

Red Horizon Engineering's laser cutting quotes are mostly going to heavy industry, which typically demands prewelded parts on 1/4-in. plate or larger, and often are used for materials handling equipment, such as conveyors. But the company also gets jobs for signage, personal projects, and even commercial art.

"Heavy industry is where we see growth, but the other projects are a lot of fun. And with ToolBox, it's so easy to adjust pricing on the fly. I haven't had to turn down any work since we opened, because I’m not wasting time manually preparing quotes," said Geroski.

He decided to differentiate himself further from the competition by adding a rotary attachment to his laser cutting machine to allow tube cutting.

"Not many fabrication shops have this capability—it's usually bigger steel suppliers—and there was interest in it straight away. But tube is almost impossible to quote manually," Geroski said. "I can easily input the information and get an accurate quote every time."

The software's Tube feature allows the user to drag and drop rectangular, square, or round hollow sections into the software, which then flattens the part and calculates run time in the quoting module.

As Geroski continues to establish and grow his job shop, the next feature he plans to implement is Web Store, which provides a 24/7 online store for laser cutting that he can embed into his own website.