Profile at a Glance: Owner, Don Hinckley, started out fabricating solid surface in his garage in 1995 with one other person. Today, NBC Solid Surfaces operates out of a 50,000 sq. ft. facility and produces natural stone and quartz surfacing in addition to solid surface. The company employs 80 people and covers all of Vermont, and parts of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The Problem: Hinckley and another countertop fabricator combined resources to hire a developer who created management software exclusively for their companies. Unfortunately, the program was not robust enough to meet the ever-changing needs of NBC Solid Surfaces, and the developer became unresponsive to Hinckley’s requests for service. The company also purchased another software program for $10,000 and never got a working copy.
“I put a ton of money into the program and it still wasn’t’ doing what I wanted it to do,” says Hinckley. “Every time I turned around, I was having to deal with the developer, and he was a pain to deal with.”
The Moraware Solution: JobTracker is a powerful software package that is easy to use and to update. In addition, Moraware’s customer service team is extremely helpful with questions regarding implementation of the software and making changes to the program as NBC Solid Surfaces has grown.
“We use the program for quoting, scheduling, job costing,” Hinckley explains. “Basically, we are running the business out of JobTracker. I love that we can change the program as needed. We don’t need a computer person to write code for it.”
“When we first implemented JobTracker there was some pushback from our employees. Once they got into it, though, they really started to enjoy using it. If I were to tell them I was going to take JobTracker away and go back to the old program, they would have me drawn and quartered. They love it.”
“With JobTracker I can track everything. If someone enters data I can see it, if the data has been changed, I can see that too. Now, we can hold people accountable. I love it for that.”
“JobTracker has reduced the chaos in the shop. The sawyer, who cuts out materials for each job, controls the flow in the shop. Before, the process was willy-nilly regarding which jobs were cut and when, because there was just a stack of paper files to work from. Now, the sawyer looks on the computer to know which job gets cut next.”
“If we have leftover pieces on a job we assign them a serial number and our materials management team puts them in a numbered bin. Then, when we look for that material we know where it is. We manage all that inside the JobTracker program.”
“I would never switch to another program. It is the best money I have ever spent.”
