Context

Dimension Sign is a small business looking to grow and compete as they expand their footprint in the shadow of Minneapolis. Based out of Vadnais Heights, MN, they bid on, produce, and install custom sign projects. Just imagine all the ADA-compliant, braille-embedded signs at your old elementary school - they create those!

Nathan Melby, a champion of systematic growth, had a vision for building a custom tool that could help his nimble team operate better.
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Objectives

Nathan laid out clear and ambitious objectives to solve for operational problems at the outset of the project:

• Clear the estimation bottleneck: Improve the number of estimates his team can produce by reducing the amount of time it takes to build out products and estimate line items, allowing for each stage in his operation to operate at full capacity.
• Reduce lag time between task hand-offs: Create passive communication opportunities and trigger notifications to be sent to subsequent project actors when a predecessor task is completed.
• Manage customers, vendors, and end users: Develop a CRM tool that can hold account and contact information, as well as any formal paperwork associated with those accounts, all in one place.
• Improve data flow and data retention: Map the "data's journey" (very similar to the "hero's journey" you read about in middle school). Develop the ability to create custom products based off of estimated costs, convert the estimate to project, purchasing, and production action items, and reconcile all finances properly (in Quickbooks Online, an external app) at the close-out of a project.
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Outcomes

Nathan was very pleased with the final product: A CRM / ERP, Estimate Builder, Project Manager, and Production Manager all rolled into one Airtable tool (with a Quickbooks integration). His team can now build products, estimate projects, and produce amazing things in a fraction of the time it used to take!
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‍Tools Built:

• CRM
• ERP / Material Library
• Estimate Builder
• Project Manager
• Production Manager
• Documentation / Training Cover Page

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Note: real customer data is hidden for privacy purposes

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