For most manufacturing founders, the early years mean fighting fires, working late nights, and inheriting old ways of working. But what if you could skip the legacy headaches and design your shop for the future—right from day one?

That's exactly what David Bamforth did at Renscott Manufacturing.

David didn't inherit a tired, paper-heavy organization—he started Renscott as a college student, purchasing his first CNC mill at 21 and building workflows around digital tools, not file cabinets. With a relentless focus on innovation, he and his team rolled out everything from paperless work orders and custom job management APIs to a powerhouse co-op program that develops talent in-house.

Renscott has grown from a bootstrapped startup to a cutting-edge manufacturer with 40,000 square feet, 32 full-time employees, ISO/AS/ITAR certifications, and a customer roster spanning spaceflight and defense. Their digital-first mindset allowed them to break into metal 3D printing, implement traceability systems for complex powder inventories, and even inspire legacy shops to update their own game.

In this episode, David shares his blueprint for shop design, workforce development, custom automation, and how a new generation is redefining what a job shop can be—with ProShop ERP as the operational foundation.

David Bamforth on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-bamforth/

Renscott Manufacturing: https://www.renscottmfg.com/

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For many job shops, the "perfect storm" looks like this: Your legacy ERP software is becoming obsolete due to Windows updates, and your two most senior employees, holding 72 years of combined tribal knowledge, are retiring at the same time.

That was the reality facing Justin Westerfeld at Die-Craft Engineering.

Die-Craft, a high-mix, low-volume shop averaging just 2-3 parts per order, was at a crossroads. They could continue operating as a traditional repair shop with heavy administrative overhead, or they could modernize.

Justin chose the latter. By implementing ProShop ERP, Die-Craft didn't just replace software; they fundamentally changed their business economics.

The results of this digital transformation are staggering. Die-Craft reduced their front-office staff from 11 people down to 6, saving nearly four full-time salaries strictly through efficiency gains, while simultaneously increasing milling capacity by 20%.

In this episode, Justin reveals how accurate job costing allowed them to win back lost contracts, how they slashed office processing time from 10 days to 1, and why even their most "crotchety" manual machinists now panic if their computers go down.

• Justin Westerfeld on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-westerfeld/
• Die-Craft Engineering: https://www.diecraftmachine.com/

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Some shops measure parts in millimeters. Lange Machine and Tool measures them in tons, up to 80,000 pounds, to be exact.

But running a shop that handles massive mining and foundry components with a small batch, high-mix workflow presents a unique data challenge. For decades, Craig Lange's family business relied on paper cost cards and a custom-built Access database to keep track of it all.

It worked, but at a cost. It required nearly a full-time employee just to handle data entry, and tribal knowledge was constantly slipping through the cracks. When a job came back three years later, the team often had to "relearn" the setup from scratch.

In this episode, Craig shares how moving to ProShop ERP was the administrative equivalent of upgrading from a manual lathe to a CNC machine.

By digitizing their entire workflow, Lange Machine cut office processing time from days to just five minutes. They captured critical setup data, reducing setup times by 10%. Most impressively, when a key administrative employee retired, the new efficiencies allowed them to handle a 15% increase in growth without backfilling the position.

This is a story about how a 52-year-old family business modernized their operations to handle monster parts with precision and profitability.

Craig Lange on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-lange-83974b1a/

Lange Machine and Tool: https://www.langemachine.com/

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