Success Stories
Explore how Equipment Design & Manufacturing + Action Stamping shifted their team from reactive to proactive execution, zero stock-outs, and a future of reliable growth by partnering with Bossard.
In a manufacturing environment where precision, timing, and reliability define customer trust, becoming constrained by a hardware supply chain that can’t keep pace with rising demand is a common challenge. Daily stock-outs, administrative strain, and mounting pressure on on-time delivery metrics often signal the need for a different approach. But what approach?
For Gavin Wherry, Owner of Equipment Design & Manufacturing + Action Stamping (EDM+AS), the right answer seemed elusive. Wherry describes his business as a growing precision sheet metal fabricator and metal stamping company “handling everything from die casting to assembly to sheet metal fabrication.” But as the company grew, so did the complexity of keeping production flowing without interruption. By 2023, increasing customer demand was colliding with mounting hardware supply issues.
Before Bossard, we were having stock issues on a daily basis, and we were missing deliveries with critical customers, even in the R&D phase. Now, stock-outs are a thing of the past.
“On a daily basis, we were having stock-outs,” Wherry recalls. “We had missed purchasing one of 25 hardware components that went into a finished good. We were having stop and start operations and missed deliveries with critical customers, even in the R&D phase.” The company tracked many ISO 9001:2015 critical KPIs, and on-time delivery in particular was suffering. According to Wherry, “We had a lot of negative impacts to our KPI in 2023 due to hardware stock-outs, and we needed a way to show continuous improvement.”
This pressure only intensified as customer schedules accelerated. “We had serious demand coming down the pipeline for hardware,” he explains. “We couldn’t keep up with ongoing purchase orders or on-time production. We needed something different.”
Traditional, finite purchase orders simply couldn’t keep pace with continuous, overlapping production. “Our orders were flowing constantly, and we weren’t able to keep up with those finite purchases,” Wherry says. “What Bossard offered really gave us the option to work from a pull from inventory setup versus finite POs every time an order came in.”
That “something different” arrived in the form of Bossard’s Smart Factory Logistics program, a system designed to automate B+C hardware stocking, replenishment, and planning. The implementation brought together Bossard’s team, IT, purchasing, and operations in a coordinated effort that made an immediate impression.
Frank Sanchez, Business Development Manager at Bossard, remembers the setup vividly. “When we got the IT guys and equipment ready and everyone aligned, we were in and out within a couple hours. Everyone was on the same wavelength to make the setup easy, efficient, and seamless.”
Once the system went live, EDM+AS gained real-time visibility into usage, automated min/max replenishment, and local hardware stocking to eliminate long lead time risks. The new process also illuminated inefficiencies across product lines. “A lot of our customers have overlapping products,” Wherry explains. “Sometimes they call it something different, but it’s the same part. By doing the diligence with Bossard, we’re cleaning up internal paperwork, simplifying travelers and routers, and making everything clearer for people on the floor.”
Bossard saw the same thing from their vantage point. “A lot of contract manufacturers start small, maybe 10–20 parts,” Sanchez says. “But they can quickly grow to 40 parts, 80 parts, even 100 and up. Gavin has been a great champion of the system, too, always pushing to make things better.”
We have not had any situation where we’re out of stock on hardware. Not once.
Over the past year, the operational transformation has been dramatic, and includes, but is not limited to:
Over time, the relationship between EDM+AS and Bossard has become mutually reinforcing in a unique way.
“We’re actually a vendor and a customer,” Wherry explains. “We can produce components for Bossard’s customer base while purchasing hardware for our own. It’s a very symbiotic relationship. It helps us grow, and it helps Bossard grow.”
Sanchez echoes this sentiment, and adds, “We feel like part of their team. It’s not just sales; we have a friendship with the buyers, engineers, and developers. If they succeed, we succeed."
Equipment Design & Manufacturing + Action Stamping’s journey with Bossard shows that with the right partner and the right system, manufacturers can not only stabilize production, but build a foundation for scalable growth, confident planning, and a stronger value promise to every customer they serve.
Wherry’s final word? Don’t hesitate: “The best thing I ever did in the past five years was bring this program into Equipment Design and Action Stamping. The hardest step is the first step, but once you take it, everything else flows. Hindsight is 20/20, right? When I look back now, there was no reason for hesitation. In the end, the financial investment was minimal compared to the gains.”