Paperless Parts Overview

Paperless Parts is a cloud-based solution machine shops in industries like aerospace, defense, industrial, and medical devices use to deliver quotes and cost estimates when selling highly configurable products. With its AI-powered quote setup and automated data extraction from RFQ emails, Paperless Parts eliminates repetitive, error-prone tasks. It offers a centralized repository that enhances visibility into quote status and historical data. To improve the speed and accuracy of quotes, the system leverages advanced geometric analysis. Together, these features make it an ideal choice for manufacturers looking to streamline their quoting process and reduce the risk of costly mistakes when configuring complex products.

Manufacturing companies benefit from Paperless Parts by transforming their sales and quoting workflows. Sales teams can respond to requests six times faster, centralize all relevant information, and reduce manual steps, which increases profitability and reduces errors​. The platform’s unique features, such as 2D and 3D CAD file viewing, geometric feature analysis, and advanced analytics, allow teams to quickly identify manufacturability issues and optimize pricing strategies. These capabilities, combined with secure in-app collaboration and customizable workflows, make Paperless Parts a standout solution in the manufacturing industry. It provides a significant edge in efficiency and accuracy.

Paperless Parts is a comprehensive, feature-rich quoting software for manufacturing companies. It helps manufacturers deliver professional, easy-to-understand quotes to buyers who need highly configurable products like heavy machinery or complex aerospace components.

For manufacturers, its most valuable features include:

• Advanced geometric analysis
• Robust configuration logic
• 2D and 3D CAD file viewing
• Holistic RFQ management
• In-app collaboration features
• AI-powered automation
• Dynamic lead times and pricing options
• PDF comparison and redaction

Advanced geometric analysis: Paperless Parts leverages a powerful geometry engine that analyzes parts based on various manufacturing processes (e.g., CNC machining, rubber manufacturing, additive manufacturing). The engine identifies potential issues, such as tight corners or deep holes, which require special tooling and incorporates them into the final estimate. You can tailor the thresholds for manufacturability detection to fit your shop’s capabilities. This level of detailed analysis ensures that manufacturers can catch manufacturability issues early, reducing errors and costs associated with rework.

Robust configuration logic: The Paperless Parts Pricing Language (P3L) makes it easy for you to configure the system to match your unique pricing models and workflows. This flexibility ensures that every manufacturer, regardless of their specific needs, can tailor the system to fit their exact requirements. This adaptability is complemented by robust customer support and enablement teams that help set up and fine-tune the system, ensuring it aligns perfectly with the company’s strategic goals

2D and 3D CAD file viewing: The platform supports 2D and 3D CAD file viewing, enabling detailed annotations and discussions directly within the software. It also integrates seamlessly with other essential systems like ERP, enhancing data flow and reducing the need for multiple software solutions. This integrated approach streamlines the entire quoting process, from RFQ to final quote, ensuring that all relevant information is centralized and easily accessible.

Holistic RFQ management: The platform provides a centralized dashboard to manage RFQs, significantly streamlining the process of collecting, sorting, and prioritizing requests. The ITAR-compliant Smart RFQ Form, which you can embed directly onto website, enhances this centralized approach, eliminates the need for manual data entry, and speeds up response times. This capability ensures that all RFQs are handled efficiently and effectively, reducing the risk of missed opportunities and errors.

In-app collaboration features: Users can highlight features or measurements on 3D models or prints directly within the platform, ensuring clear communication and reducing the risk of miscommunication. Additionally, the platform provides real-time visibility into the status of every quote, helping teams identify and address bottlenecks promptly. This comprehensive visibility and collaborative environment enhance overall workflow efficiency and accuracy.

AI-powered automation: The system utilizes AI to automate critical aspects of the quoting process, such as the setup of new quotes from RFQ emails. This automation not only speeds up the process but also reduces human error by automatically attaching and organizing all relevant files. The AI-supported Part Setup tool identifies and suggests critical part data, further minimizing time spent on manual tasks and enhancing accuracy.

Dynamic lead times and pricing options: Paperless Parts allows manufacturers to offer multiple lead time and price combinations on their quotes. This feature helps shops increase their margins, improve win rates, and speed up order intake by aligning more closely with where buyers see value. By providing expedite options, manufacturers can cater to urgent customer needs while capturing higher margins, ultimately enhancing the overall customer experience.

PDF comparison and redaction: The platform includes advanced tools for comparing and redacting PDFs, which are particularly valuable for handling drawing revisions and maintaining data security. Users can overlay PDFs to quickly identify changes, saving significant time and reducing the likelihood of errors. The PDF redaction tool allows users to easily and securely redact sensitive information directly within the platform, eliminating the need for external software and ensuring data integrity.

For manufacturers, there are several advantages to using Paperless Parts for quoting and cost estimation. The most notable ones include:

• Increased sales efficiency and productivity by automating manual tasks and streamlining the quoting process
• Enhanced quote accuracy with its advanced geometric analysis, configuration logic, and AI-supported automation
• Better resource utilization and cost reduction through optimized workflows and RFQ management
• Improved customer experience with faster response times, dynamic lead times, and visual collaboration features
• Data security and compliance with ITAR-compliant forms, US-based system administrators, FedRAMP Moderate Equivalent CMMC compliance, and cloud-native software hosted on GovCloud
• Flexibility and adaptability with the ability to configure the system to fit unique pricing models and workflows
• Centralized data and information through 2D and 3D CAD file viewing, ERP integration, and a centralized dashboard for RFQ management

Comprehensive onboarding and enablement from dedicated teams to ensure manufacturers can maximize the benefits of the platform

Within manufacturing, there are several different industries that can benefit from using Paperless Parts. Some of these include:

Aerospace and defense

Efficient handling of large and complex parts/assemblies: The platform allows users to quickly build and reconfigure bills of materials (BOMs) for 500+ part assemblies. This feature allows manufacturers to quickly extract tree structures from CAD files, modify and arrange product assemblies, and transform subassemblies into purchased components. This gives BOMs and routing steps a smooth transfer from Paperless Parts to their ERP systems.

Enhanced security and compliance: Paperless Parts is ITAR-registered and offers a FedRAMP Moderate Equivalent solution, ensuring compliance with CMMC and other regulatory standards. This allows manufacturers to protect their customers’ intellectual property securely, share files selectively, prevent unauthorized downloads, and set expiration dates for data access. This high level of security is crucial for handling Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) and passing CMMC audits, making Paperless Parts a reliable choice for defense contractors.

Rapid quoting with detailed analysis: The platform uses advanced geometric analysis to provide detailed insights into part manufacturability, including dimensions, tolerances, parallelisms, datums, and text annotations directly from Model-Based Definition (MBD) files. This capability is particularly valuable for aerospace and defense manufacturers who often work with parts that have uniquely tight tolerances and require adherence to specific military and ASTM standards.

Heavy machinery

Advanced costing engine: Heavy machinery components tend to be bulky and unwieldy, necessitating specialized handling and considerable setup time. Paperless Parts’ costing engine gives manufacturers the power to automatically pinpoint part characteristics that influence production time and expenses, including the requirement for forklifts and additional labor to transport parts around the workshop.

Increased flexibility in lead times: The demand for heavy equipment parts can fluctuate significantly, and meeting production volume requirements within tight timelines is a common challenge. And fast turnaround times are often prioritized over pure unit cost. Paperless Parts enables manufacturers to offer dynamic lead times with adjusted pricing, allowing them to capture increased margins by providing flexibility to their customers.

Efficient management of complex BOMs: Users can reconfigure BOMs to match their specific manufacturing processes, convert subassemblies to purchased components, and handle extensive part assemblies with ease. This reduces the administrative burden and potential errors associated with manual data entry, streamlining the entire quoting process from start to finish.

Medical devices

Quality control and regulatory compliance: Paperless Parts ensures that all configurations comply with stringent industry regulations, such as ISO 13485, ISO 14971, and FDA 21 CFR Part 11. The platform supports digital documentation storage, revision control, and real-time collaboration, ensuring that all relevant documents are easily accessible and up to date. This helps manufacturers maintain high quality and traceability, reducing the risk of non-compliance and product recalls.

Customized routing and quote templates: The platform allows medical device manufacturers to create customized routing templates that include quality assurance specifications such as first article inspections, custom sampling plans, and production part approval process (PPAP) specs. This ensures that all critical quality checks and controls are accurately costed and included in the quoting process, regardless of who is generating the quote.

Advanced analytics for better decision-making: Paperless Parts provides advanced analytics that enable manufacturers to analyze multiple layers of data to optimize front office operations, prioritize quotes, and price work effectively. By understanding win rates by customer, geometry, or material, medical device manufacturers can make impactful business decisions, improve operational efficiency, and identify their most profitable jobs.

Given the complex and customizable nature of the platform, Paperless Parts pricing is based on the specific needs and requirements of each manufacturer. Contact Paperless Parts directly via their website to request a demo and receive a personalized quote for your business.

While there are several types of customers that use CPQ, manufacturers are among the primary ones. That means the CPQ software you select as a manufacturer will need to cater to your specific needs, product type, manufacturing processes, and business model.

Here’s a look at a few other options, and who they’re best for:

Top 3 Paperless Parts Alternatives

PROS Smart CPQ

PROS CPQ is a highly configurable, cloud-based solution designed for manufacturers and distributors. It offers advanced pricing and quoting capabilities, 2D/3D product visualizations, and many other features available within Paperless Parts. Where it really shines is with its AI and machine learning capabilities — they’re some of the most advanced in the entire industry. The AI/ML-driven product configurator facilitates precise and efficient product configuration with 2D/3D models. Its price management features are also top-notch. Embedded price waterfalls demonstrate the impact of discounts, markups, and price agreements on final net prices and margins in real-time. Choose PROS CPQ if you’re a manufacturer that works closely with distributors — e.g., in the auto parts, consumer goods, chemicals, or food/consumables industries.

XaitCPQ

XaitCPQ is a highly intuitive CPQ tool with 70,000+ customers ranging from SMB manufacturers to Fortune 500 enterprises. While Paperless Parts primarily targets American companies (and excels at it), XaitCPQ offers international security (ISO/IEC 27001) and data privacy (GDPR) that make it suitable for multinational corporations. For manufacturers, XaitCPQ also has a guided selling feature that helps your sales team quickly and easily configure complex products. Choose XaitCPQ if you’re a manufacturer that needs international support from your CPQ solution.

Infor CPQ

Infor CPQ is an industry veteran that’s been around for more than two decades. It offers manufacturers a quoting and ordering system with customization and visualizations (including augmented reality), automated manufacturing instructions, and extensible developer tools. Where it sets itself apart is with its system integrations. Through Infor’s sophisticated Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution and its API gateway, users can integrate enterprise system — on-premise, hybrid, or cloud-based. It also integrates with Infor Birst®, the vendor’s world-class business intelligence platform. Choose Infor CPQ if your organization needs immersive AR experiences, enterprise-level customizations and integrations, or integrated BI tools.

Andrew Parker

Andrew is a professional copywriter with expertise in creating content focused on business-to-business (B2B) software. He conducts research and produces articles that provide valuable insights and information to his readers.

Paperless Parts Overview

• 1Why this product is good
• 2Product Details
• 3What are the advantages of using Better Proposals?
• 4What industries are best suited for this solution?
• 5Prices
• 6Is there anyone else out there?
• 7FAQs