Case Study: How Jask Metrology helps job shops succeed

Helping manufacturers meet their inspection requirements

If you’ve worked at a small manufacturer or job shop, you might be familiar with the challenges many of these businesses face: the lack of time, manpower, or other resources needed to help them complete inspections on time.

They might not have all the measurement tools required for a new job. It can be hard to keep up with regulatory requirements such as AS9100. Job shops frequently tackle many obstacles in order to complete inspections, fill out reports, and ship parts on time.

This is where Carlos Trevino, owner of Jask Metrology Services, comes in. Jask Metrology is a small business based in Texas that wants to help its customers, other small businesses, succeed.

Carlos has been in the manufacturing industry for over two decades. After working as a quality manager for much of that time and picking up a lot of side work along the way, he decided to start his own business. At first, he mainly did CMM programming for his customers, but that quickly expanded to other tasks. With his experience in the aerospace and defense industry and expertise in AS9100 standards, Carlos began holding small classes to teach people how to fill out AS9102 forms.

Now, three years later, Carlos helps job shops with many aspects of their inspections and quality processes, including setting up CMM programs, inspecting parts, and completing reports.

“A lot of these businesses just don’t have the time to do inspections, or they don’t understand how to fill out all the documentation,” Carlos said. “So they call me and I help them with their inspection work.”

One customer, a precision plastics manufacturer, needed to get their new AS9100 certification, but had just lost their quality manager and inspector. They had ten FAIs that needed to be finished to show the auditor. Carlos spent three weeks working with their team day in and day out, helping to get their FAIs done and improve their quality processes. He finished all the paperwork needed and showed the team how to fill out AS9102 forms. When it came time for the audit, the customer passed with no major findings - the first time they had ever passed without the auditors needing to come back.

“I still work with that customer to this day and do ongoing inspection work for them,” Carlos said. “They’ve also referred me to three different companies. It all goes back to helping them pass that first audit.”

All of Jask Metrology’s customers are companies with less than 50 people. Some aren’t able to buy a CMM or other equipment Carlos has. Others don’t have the engineers to help create inspection plans, or the time to stay on top of complicated industry regulations. In many cases, hiring another full-time employee isn’t justifiable, so Carlos fills in the gaps by helping on a regular basis or with specific projects. 

Finishing the job ahead of schedule with InspectionXpert

Carlos was introduced to InspectionXpert by a customer who had the software at their shop. Before, Carlos manually ballooned part drawings and typed the data into the inspection report. With InspectionXpert, he was able to save time on inspections, and it became a valuable tool he uses for all his customers.

In one case, Carlos was completing an FAI for an aviation company before he discovered InspectionXpert. There were 16 drawings and a long parts list they had to pull information from, and it took Carlos almost a week to get all the data on the FAI report. Later, the same company called Carlos back because the part had been revised and they needed to redo the FAI. This time, Carlos was ready with new software.

“What took me a week to do before took just a day and a half with InspectionXpert, so my customer was able to get their parts shipped on time,” Carlos said. The data he captured in the part drawing went straight into the inspection report, instead of having to type it in separately, enabling him to get the part inspected much faster. The customer had been at risk of being late, but instead were able to ship the parts out on schedule.

With InspectionXpert, Carlos can quickly prepare inspection reports for AS9102, PPAP, or other formats required by the customer, and get the paperwork part of the job done with less time and effort. Because less typing is required, InspectionXpert also helps increase the accuracy of inspection reports.

Using InspectionXpert is a win-win for both Carlos and his customers: he can move on to the next job sooner and get more work accomplished, and since he spends less time on inspections, his customers don’t need to pay him as much and are able to meet their deadlines.

Some examples of the work that Jask Metrology does for their customers include:

• Setting up and running CMM programs
• Inspection work: First Article Inspections, in-process inspections, critical characteristics only, etc.
• Filling out inspection reports including AS9102, PPAP, or other documentation needed
• Lowering Accepted Quality Limits (AQLs), figuring out how often in-process inspections are required
• Creating inspection plans, FMEAs, and other quality planning documents
• Helping customers understand industry requirements and details such as GD&T

Jask Metrology and the small job shops it serves have not been immune to the challenges that most businesses have faced over the past year due to the pandemic. Because of this, Carlos understands that it’s more important than ever for small businesses to help each other out. His ability to help manufacturers with their inspections and quality processes, and to get the job done quickly and reliably, has earned him continued work with his existing customers and referrals to new ones.

“All of my relationships are ongoing. My customers that don’t have the time or resources to do all the inspection work themselves, they keep calling me back.”

Get free access to InspectionXpert to see if it can help you save time on inspection planning and reporting.