GURU Customer Profile – Quality Tool Service, Inc – Shell Lake, Wisconsin

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The first thing you may notice is the location.  Quality Tool Service, Inc. is a manufacturing company located in the small town of Shell Lake, Wisconsin.  Shell Lake is just over two hours away from our offices in downtown Minneapolis.  Although two hours is a long distance to work with a Managed Services Provider, we knew that right away it would be a good fit.  Read below to find out why we decided to work with each other.

Gordon Hodgett is the President and CEO of Quality Tool Service, Inc. (QTS), a company his father started almost 15 years ago.  They design and manufacture complex weld fixtures and robotic tooling for manufacturing companies and tier 1 suppliers, many of them on the fortune 500.  They consistently work within very high tolerances (0.0001” – one-ten-thousandth of an inch!), and employ a number of highly skilled engineers using 3D solid modeling software along with machinists using high powered CNC programming software.  Needless to say they run a fast-paced shop that relies on accuracy, efficiency, and reliability.

“When you are working on a project where you do not personally understand all the technical details, it’s hard to define value and quantify what the supplier is actually bringing to the table, so with those types of projects it’s critical to work with someone that can provide a specific solution for your needs without selling you a bunch of unnecessary items just to make more money.

“When we were first in contact with aCOUPLEofGURUS, I instantly connected with Keith.  I like working with people I can trust and that have integrity, and Keith quickly established himself as someone I could trust.”  -Gordon

Up until QTS approached us, they were concerned with the reliability and redundancy of their systems.  They design their fixtures in-house, so their engineers can spend hundreds of hours on one project and they could not afford to lose it.  Their server was built in-house and was running old software.  Their entire backup system consisted of a couple external hard drives that never left the building (no off-site backup).  Overall, their entire network was running on outdated technology, and was beginning to make a significant impact on their productivity.  That’s when they decided to call the Gurus.

“Their pricing was upfront.  We had gone down this path with other vendors before talking to the Gurus. It seemed like every step we took moving towards project execution, cost was added to the original proposal – it felt like the old ‘bait & switch’ move.  With Keith, the final cost of the executed project came out very close to the original proposal.  We felt throughout the entire process that the Gurus were providing great value.”  -Gordon

Here at the Gurus, our approach to any of our customers is to engineer a solution that not only fixes their problems, but truly fulfills the needs they have of their technology.  With QTS, we were able to make some significant upgrades to their overall network, install a new server, and give them a proper GPS backup solution.  Overall, their system is running fast, efficiently, and redundantly.  In fact, when asked if there were any specific situations where the Gurus were able to fix a major problem since the initial project, Gordon simply answered:

“I wouldn’t say there was a specific situation as much as there was NO situation.

“As the CEO, I cared the most about the robustness of our network.  It does what it needs to do, and I am no longer interrupted with issues.  The lack of them needing to be involved on a regular basis is what sells me, and what keeps me from worrying about our long-distance relationship.

“In one sentence?  They provided a solution and they solved our problems.”  -Gordon

If you’d like to learn more about Quality Tool Service, you can check out their website at www.qtoolservice.com.