How Willcox Manufacturing Moved Sign Production Tracking Off Paper
Peter Willcox and the team at Willcox Manufacturing replaced paper work orders with SignTracker. Now every department builds from the same, current job information.
Willcox Manufacturing, San Antonio, Texas | Wholesale sign manufacturer | SignTracker customer since September 2022 | 4,365 jobs processed in SignTracker
Willcox Manufacturing builds signs for other sign companies, marketing agencies, and corporate clients. As a wholesale manufacturer, the shop produces channel letters, sign cabinets, flat cut-out and dimensional letters, post and panel signs, and interior and architectural signage. It ships the finished work to sites across the country.
Wholesale work runs on accuracy. A client sends specs, the shop builds to them, and the sign has to arrive exactly as ordered. For years, Willcox Manufacturing managed that process on paper. In 2022, the shop moved to SignTracker, shop management and estimating software built specifically for sign and wrap shops.
When Paper Work Orders Can’t Keep Up With Changes
Six or seven departments touch every job at Willcox Manufacturing. Before SignTracker, each job started at the printer and the copier.
“I would print up a work order, make copies, we’d pass that out to everybody,” Peter explained. “We went through a lot of paper, we went through just a lot of time making those copies and putting it together, putting it out for people to come pick up.”
The bigger problem came after the copies went out. In wholesale manufacturing, specs often change after production starts.
“Once you get all that done, somebody makes a change, a paint color or whatever it is, so then you’d have to pull all of them, hope that none of your guys made copies,” Peter said. “Especially when we were fabbing the larger signs, my guys would make copies of the bigger 11 by 17. So you might have a copy running around that you didn’t even know about it, and sign gets built and that change was never updated.”
When you build custom signs to a client’s specs, one outdated work order can mean a sign that gets built wrong, rebuilt, and shipped twice.
One Digital Job Record for Every Department
Today, Willcox Manufacturing runs digitally. The line-item detail for every job lives in SignTracker, and the team bills the job in QuickBooks. Each job in SignTracker is the central record for the work.
“It’s just been a really good spot for us to get organized,” Peter said.
Every active job lives on the shop’s SignTracker Job Flow board. When something changes, the team adds a note directly to the job, such as a sign that needs a UL label or a job going on hold, and everyone sees it right away.
To make that work on the floor, Willcox Manufacturing put iPads out in the shop.
“We have iPads out in the shop, so all of our team can see when a change is made,” Peter explained. “We can notify a specific team member so they get flagged in their email to look for something, and then all of the documentation gets uploaded into a job.”
There’s no stack of copies to recall and no stray 11 by 17 floating around the fab area. When a spec changes, the change lives in one place, and the people who need to act on it get flagged.
Photo Documentation That Protects the Shop
Willcox Manufacturing ships signs across the country, and the team photographs finished work, including overhead shots, before it leaves the building.
“We take tons of pictures,” Peter said. “We’re shipping signs across the country and stuff happens, right? Things break, things this, that, the other. So it’s very important that we can show our clients, hey, this is what it looked like before it left, you know, now it’s on the wall and it looks a little different than it looked here.”
Because those photos live inside each job in SignTracker, the record of what shipped is already attached when a question comes up after delivery.
Running the Shop From Anywhere
The value of having everything in one place became especially clear when Peter spent eight weeks away from the shop.
“I can remote log in,” he said. “I can check everything. I don’t have to bother my team if it’s at night or whatever. I can just go to the job. I can click on it. You know, I can see where it is with pictures, updated notes, anything like that.”
For an owner, that means staying informed without pulling the team off production to answer status questions. The shop keeps moving whether or not he’s in the building.
Getting the Team On Board
Peter is straightforward that moving a shop of about 45 people off paper took some adjustment, and he counts himself among the old-school, paper-first holdouts. The hesitation was about trying something new, not about the software being hard to use.
“A lot of people were intimidated by it, me included. I was just a little intimidated, something new, super easy to use, and now I can’t imagine us running without it.”
What SignTracker Means to Willcox Manufacturing Today
With 4,365 jobs run through SignTracker since 2022, Willcox Manufacturing has:
- Digital job records in place of paper work orders and copy runs
- Spec changes visible to the whole shop as soon as they’re made
- Email notifications that flag specific team members
- Photo documentation of finished signs before they ship
- Remote access to job status, notes, and photos from anywhere
For sign manufacturers and multi-department shops still running on paper, Peter’s story shows what sign production tracking looks like when every department works from the same job record. The team builds to the latest specs, the shop can show clients exactly what shipped, and the owner can check on any job from wherever he is.
See It in Action
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SignTracker is built specifically for sign and wrap shops. Watch the demo to see how quoting templates, approval workflows, and the Job Flow Board connect in one platform.
Watch the full interview on the Behind the Signs Podcast (coming soon)
Joe Arenella, founder of SignTracker and host of Behind the Signs, toured Willcox Manufacturing and sat down with Peter to talk about the shop, the work, and what it takes to build signs for other sign companies. The full episode is coming soon. In the meantime, explore Behind the Signs for more podcast episodes and shop tours from across the industry.
Need a Wholesale Sign Partner? Contact Willcox Manufacturing
Willcox Manufacturing builds pylon, monument, channel letter, architectural, and interior signs for sign companies and businesses nationwide from its shop in San Antonio, Texas. Contact Willcox Manufacturing for wholesale to the trade sign work.