Boss utes

Boss Aluminium upgrades laser cutting quoting to save time and boost business growth.

Boss Aluminium designs and fabricates premium aluminium ute trays, canopies, toolboxes, and accessories. Owner David Whitehead said that after experiencing strong growth during Covid, he researched ways to make his facility more efficient, productive, and responsive to customer delivery times.

A premium aluminium fabrication specialist serving the caravan, camping, overland, touring and fleet markets, Boss Aluminium has upgraded to an automated laser cutting quoting software as part of a series of upgrades to its Melbourne facility.

“I started by installing automated laser and bending machines, including a Salvagnini P4 HPT self-loading panel bending machine that loads the next panel in under a minute, a Bystronic robot bending machine, an LVD hydraulic brake press with easyform and real-time laser measuring, and a Durma laser cutting machine. I was happy with the way the fabrication workshop was shaping up, but I was spending far too long quoting new jobs,” said Whitehead. “I’m the sort of person that’s meticulous with detail, and I need to make sure everything is totally accurate, and double or triple checked before going to a customer. This atti-tude is appreciated by customers, but it was creating a huge time-consuming task for me,” he said.

When Whitehead received large orders with thousands of parts, it could sometimes take a full day to accurately quote for the job, which would likely involve laser cutting, bending, powder coating, folding, and other secondary processes. For simpler and smaller jobs, he developed formulas and cross-referenced them, but quotes were still taking around two hours.

Boss Aluminium specialises in premium quality, durable, Australian-made aluminium parts, and supplies individual enthusiasts through to fleet owners and commercial and defence industries

Quoting like a boss

“I started researching automated quoting software, to see if I could automate this process, like I had done for other parts of my business. I also talked to close colleagues in the industry, and they recommended ToolBox, by Tempus Tools, which I had come across too,” said Whitehead.

ToolBox, by Tempus Tools, is an automatic laser cutting quoting software developed by laser cutting industry experts with decades of practical hands-on experience run-ning and working in job shops around the world. It’s a rules-based Software as a

Ser-vice (Saas) platform that can be set up with information on material price, cutting time, labour, and other relevant information, to generate quotes quickly and accurately.

“Naturally each job is different, so they will all take different times to quote, but for basic quotes that were taking me around two hours, I can do them in under five minutes, in-cluding my own double-checking,” said Whitehead.

“When using spreadsheets, I used to second-guess myself, but with ToolBox, I know it’s totally accurate every time. And it saves parts data in Part Library, so that it can pre-fill repeat jobs and save even more time.”

Tempus Tools Director, Felipe Lechuga, says that it’s rewarding to see such a focused and driven business owner choose ToolBox. “David Whitehead has opted for elite equipment, and he is constantly optimising his production. ToolBox clearly aligns with this optimisation, and it has given him the best solution for his laser cutting quoting.”

Environmentally conscious secondary processes

In addition to laser cutting, Boss Aluminium also uses ToolBox, by Tempus Tools, to quote secondary processes such as powder coating, and folding.

“We provide full treatment aluminium, and we have an in-house powder-coating capa- bility, which is totally chrome-free. Chromebased powder coating is carcinogenic and can have negative impacts on the environment, so we’ve developed better alternatives that also improve adhesions, and provide greater durability and protection,” explains Whitehead.

“Being able to add these secondary processes into ToolBox to generate a fast quote is very helpful for me. The service has also been outstanding, and highly responsive, if I’ve ever had any questions.”

The future is modular

When Boss Aluminium first established, more than 20 years ago, they were doing a large number of customised, one-off jobs. But as the business grew, David saw the need to standardise his core product offerings.

“I made the decision to standardise, but keep things fully modular, to provide custom-ers with the best range of options. By doing this it means our research and develop-ment remains useful beyond each individual job. And we still have the capacity to fur-ther customise jobs when requested,” said Whitehead.

“Business has continued to be strong, and with the time I’m saving by using ToolBox for all my laser cutting quotes, I can reinvest in the business, win more work, and grow even further,” he concluded.

tempustools.com