Carr Machine & Tool Inc. | Manufacturing Technologies | advancedmanufacturing.org

Carr Machine & Tool produces multi-axis machining and engineering support for high-tech industries at its 15,000-sq-ft facility in Illinois. To boost efficiency, the company tapped ProShop USA to supply a modern ERP system.

Carr Machine & Tool Inc. has come a long way from its modest beginnings in the family garage in 1972. What started as a manufacturer of commercial printing press parts at a time when newspapers were as commonplace on the daily commute as cups of coffee, the company has undergone substantial change, transforming into a supplier of precision multi-axis machining and engineering support for the medical, semiconductor, automation, aerospace and defense industries.

Over the years, the company has grown significantly. A facility that once housed manual lathes to keep the presses running, is now a slick, 15,000-sq-ft (1,400-sq-m) machining facility, supporting clients such as Tesla, Boom Supersonic and Virgin Galactic from its location within the country’s largest industrial park in Elk Grove, Illinois.

The company’s growth has coincided with ongoing changes throughout the manufacturing industry. Advances in technology, evolving regulations and more defined standards necessitated finding new ways of doing business, without straying too far from the culture and core values founder Dick Carr instilled in the company.

Since 2004, when Jim Carr ascended to the presidency, the company has been on a steadfast mission to modernize and make all its operations more efficient.

“I’ve learned this entire business from the back door to the front door,” Carr reminisces. “From manual machining to CNC machining, to operating and managing a first-class aerospace machine shop, to what we are right now, setting a record year.”

In his first 10 years at the helm, Carr focused on bringing the family company into the 21st century. This included hiring new talent, updating and acquiring machinery, and obtaining AS9100D accreditation.

“I didn’t want it to be my father’s machine shop anymore,” Carr says, seeing manufacturing’s shifting landscape as a golden opportunity. He recognized the evolution toward an increasingly high-tech industry, one with significant growth potential. He also wanted to steer clear of anything that might impede the company’s progress. This meant investing in the company’s future.

“When I took over, we were still using a lot of old technology, (and) many of our computers were running on DOS as they had from the beginning,” Carr says. “We invested in new CNC equipment, automation, robotics technology, inspection equipment and so much more.”

In 2015, Carr’s son, Ryan, joined the company as the new operations manager. Ryan’s focus was to facilitate sales, further update operations and help rebrand the company . The need for a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was high on his list of priorities.

The old software was no longer capable of meeting the company’s existing needs. Moreover, it lacked the ability to provide the necessary process control to support a growing organization. Also missing was the real-time data capture needed to ensure quality and engage in continuous improvement.

“Everything was lacking,” the elder Carr laments. “We weren’t tracking time, there wasn’t process development—just everything. My son, Ryan, said, ‘This isn’t doing the job for us. We really need to find something that’s going to take us to the next level.’”

A modern ERP system, he noted, could provide:

In 2018, the Carrs switched to a fully integrated, cloud-based ERP system from ProShop USA Inc. Created by the founders and former owners of Pro CNC Inc., who initially developed custom business-management software for their own machine shop when off-the-shelf ERP options fell short, ProShop’s software has evolved into a comprehensive solution that encourages feedback from the C-suite all the way to the shop floor. Both Pro CNC and ProShop are based in Bellingham, Wash.

Featuring a browser-based, paperless interface (all necessary information is available on tablets, computers and on the machines themselves), ProShop ERP helps digitize shop floor operations, which the company says results in fewer errors, better project management and increased efficiency, This has proved to be crucial for Carr Machine’s success, given its young staff of 14 craftsmen.

Thanks to ProShop’s comprehensive parts module, all the setup sheets, programs, drawings and tool lists for each work order—along with gage calibration and inspection—are at machinists’ fingertips, on screen at each CNC station, according to Carr. He says this enables more work to be managed concurrently.

Meanwhile, media-rich visual instructions, including text, photos and videos, guide employees and eliminate tribal knowledge on the shop floor. New trainees have a full understanding of how the system works within a few weeks, Carr adds.

“Reliance on tribal knowledge is essentially eliminated because it’s all within ProShop—where it’s easy to access and easy to update,” Carr says .

“Without ProShop, we wouldn’t be able to scale the company. We wouldn’t have a paperless quality management system for our AS9100 certification, and those are just two of the more impactful things that come to mind when I think of how we’ve grown.”

ProShop’s Rapid Estimate Template system makes it easy to plan and estimate costs for projects, addressing labor time, material costs, suppliers and lead times, as well as customization of rates, overheads and profit margins, according to Paul Van Metre, ProShop’s president. As a result, Carr Machining was able to cut its estimating time to one-third of what it had been within the first year of implementing the system—information only needs to be inputted once and instantly shows up wherever it’s needed.

All that data from the estimate gets pulled into the quote, the work order and into a part level, Carr explains. “Every single module that you access pulls all the data from one to another.”

With such integration, from entering details to production transparency, the system significantly reduces time spent figuring out where projects stand and when they will be completed, eliminating guesswork, according to the partners. ProShop’s finite capacity scheduling provides real-time updates on all tasks in-progress within work cells, predicting completion based on shift schedules. It forecasts timelines for both ongoing and future jobs, utilizing advanced analytics to calculate shipment and return dates.

“We can see what our on-time delivery is with a matter of clicks,” Carr says. “We can see what our backlog is. We can see what we’ve shipped in the last month.”

The increased visibility has been a game changer, according to Carr. Being able to track sales, financials, customer behavior and other metrics has empowered the company to make informed decisions, spot trends and seize growth opportunities.

“It’s all filtered by industry,” Carr adds. “For example, if we want to know how much work we did for space and exploration in 2023 and the percent of the business it comprises, within a few clicks, we can get that information.”

Serving industries that are flight-critical has meant rigorous quality control, something the new ERP system is designed to handle with a standards component configurable for AS9100 compliance. In addition, the company’s own AS9100 goals, policies and procedures are housed within ProShop’s QMS module. This ensures that criteria are met, and shaves time and cost off the process by streamlining document handling and enabling real-time quality monitoring.

Prior to the implementation of ProShop ERP, Carr was relying almost exclusively on the 40-plus years of tribal knowledge it had accumulated. And it was increasingly limited by the company’s biggest problem, which, according to Jim Carr, was finding qualified and skilled workers.

After co-hosting a manufacturing podcast and meeting Van Metre, Carr realized that ProShop ERP might be just what he needed to move the needle. So, with his son Ryan’s encouragement, Carr set up an initial demonstration.

“Of course, we had a lot to consider but mostly, we had not much to lose and nearly everything to gain,” Carr quips. “The number one thing for us was that Pro-CNC, as machinists themselves, were already speaking our language. Manufacturing has its own language and machining has its own particular dialect within that.”

The fact that ProShop knew the ins and outs of machining has helped Carr Machine reduce on-boarding time for new employees using the software, Carr says. It also helped slash estimating time down to one-third of what it had been, while improving accuracy. “And that’s all just with the particular module we are working in, Carr says. “There are numerous other time-saving features in the software we have yet to tap into.”

For more information about ProShop ERP, visit go.proshoperp.com or call 800-990-4046. For more information about Carr Machine & Tool Inc., visit carrmachine.com or call 847-593-8003.

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