Busy Job Shops Increase Profitability and Improve Project Accountability With NetSuite

Job shops, specializing in custom product design and low-volume projects, face unique challenges in managing their operations. In this white paper, we’ll explore how the powerful combination of NetSuite and Paapri’s Job Shop in a Box empowers small-batch manufacturers to prioritize customer work, determine true profitability, and improve project accountability, ultimately driving business growth and success.

Read this white paper, written by Oracle NetSuite and Paapri, to learn how your job shop company can benefit from a digital transformation.

Key Takeaways

With the powerful combination of NetSuite Cloud ERP and Paapri’s Job Shop in a Box, small-batch manufacturers can determine true profitability, prioritize customer work, and see whether they’re making or losing money on every project. 

Job shops, unlike mass manufacturing, focus on custom product design, individual production processes, and unique orders. Because they handle a high number of low-volume projects in industries such as aerospace, aircraft, and marine, job shops have a highly variable product mix. Therefore, this requires a high degree of flexibility, especially with addressing customers’ frequent change-order requests. 

“A customer will issue a purchase order with the knowledge that it will be able to change drawings and specifications throughout the process. Job shops need internal processes and systems that help them easily accommodate and respond to these changes.”

Piyas “P” Bandyopadhyay, Master Principal Consultant at Paapri Cloud Technologies, a NetSuite Alliance Partner

The Job Shop’s Domain

The nature of a job shop—a high degree of variability and low-volume production—creates business management and operational challenges. To make matters worse, the software system(s) that many job shops use are not equipped to handle these challenges. Job shops tend to rely on antiquated software systems, spreadsheets, and a lot of manual work as orders move from concept to completion. An out-of-date accounting system, disparate software that doesn’t integrate with other systems, and a lack of standardization across projects all stunt business growth. 

 “This isn’t like making and selling computers, calculators, or phones. There’s no repetitive processes, which means companies are starting from scratch with every new project that they take on.”

“P” Bandyopadhyay, Master Principal Consultant at Paapri Cloud Technologies

Trying To Make Do On Disconnected, Aging Tech Systems

Growing job shops tend to use a whole assortment of systems to manage their business such as Fishbowl, Quickbooks, Xero, Global Shop, Shoptech, or JobBOSS because “no one has presented them with an all-encompassing cloud ERP that they can use to run their end-to-end operations,” said Bandyopadhyay. A large problem with having so many disparate systems is when veteran employees retire, their knowledge about production processes leaves with them. When new employees are brought in, they have no knowledge of how to approach each unique project. Extended sales cycles can also present another common pain point, especially for companies that lack good control and internal systems. 

“Most job shops rely on a hodgepodge of systems. No one has presented them with an all-encompassing cloud ERP that they can use to run their end-to-end operations.”

“P” Bandyopadhyay, Master Principal Consultant at Paapri Cloud Technologies

Without the right technology in place, quoting, closing, planning, and scheduling are often ad hoc.

Paapri’s Job Shop in a Box

Based on its years of experience working with manufacturers, Paapri developed Job Shop in a Box—a solution that allows job shops of all sizes to replace their disconnected, aging systems. Paapri’s Job Shop in a Box includes tablet and console interfaces that manufacturers can use to capture shop time. This enables accurate measurements of job cost, employee productivity, and overall job profitability. Paapri’s secret sauce is its ability to speak the job shop’s language and its deep understanding of how these operations work, how they make money, and what challenges they deal with daily. 

“Everyone wants to measure how much time it took to make something. We help job shops achieve that goal using NetSuite as their core business system.”

“P” Bandyopadhyay, Master Principal Consultant at Paapri Cloud Technologies

Measuring True Profitability

With NetSuite, job shops have an ERP that:

• Tracks each individual project from start to finish
• Manages end-to-end manufacturing operations
• Handles accounting in one streamlined system

NetSuite and Paapri’s “Job Shop in a Box” addresses common pain points by:

• Offering a full view of performance and profitability
• Enabling better decision-making
• Converting institutional knowledge into a standardized format that anyone can follow
• Tying financials with manufacturing, quoting, and sales processes into one consolidated system
• Automatically sending invoices to international customers without concerns such as currency exchanges

“With just a couple of clicks, a job shop can generate a profit and loss statement, view income statements, and review job costs right down to the individual product level.”

“P” Bandyopadhyay, Master Principal Consultant at Paapri Cloud Technologies

NetSuite & Job Shop in a Box in Action with NEScientific

Before working with Paapri to implement NetSuite and Job Shop in a Box, NEScientific (NES)—the market leader in high-end medical device reprocessing—ran its business functions on seven separate systems, including QuickBooks and home-grown software. NES chose NetSuite for its ability to consolidate numerous business functions, its relatively smooth implementation process, and its customizability. Using NetSuite, NES has incorporated all its core business processes — sales, fulfillment, finances, inventory management, ordering — on one cloud ERP system. Paapri helped NES implement this more standardized approach. 

“NetSuite fit the bill as the right ERP system for us as a mid-level, cash-flow positive startup that we are. We needed an out-of-the-box solution with some base customization that allowed us to do what we needed to do.”

Job Staub, Director of Strategic Initiatives at NES

“Paapri’s probably the best project team I’ve ever worked with in my entire professional career, and I don’t say that lightly. I’ve worked with quite a few in lots of industries and in different projects.”

Job Staub, Director of Strategic Initiatives at NES

Meeting Job Shops’ Complete Business Needs

NES is just one of many growing job shops that Paapri has helped realize the benefits of NetSuite and Job Shop in a Box. As the job shop market continues to grow, and as customer requirements become more complex and fluid, smart manufacturers will continue to replace their aging, disconnected systems with a consolidated solution that meets their end-to-end business needs.