Johnny Goode is the president of MSP Manufacturing, a manufacturer based in Bloomington, IN, that primarily serves the commercial aerospace and defense aerospace markets. He sat down with us to share how the business is applying CAM Assist in its operations.

Q: What do you make for your customers?
A: A lot of our products are tied to the cockpits of commercial aircraft—instrument cases, case assemblies, switch guards, and avionic cooling ducts. For our machine shop, we handle build-to-print jobs, supporting customers with whatever they need.

Q: What challenges do you face in your business today?
A: Before CAM Assist, one of our biggest pain points was finding skilled programmers. In our geographic area, there weren’t many sources to recruit from, which made programming a bottleneck for us.

Q: How does a programming bottleneck impact your business?
A: It increases lead times for new jobs. There’s a finite number of jobs that programmers can handle and get on machines. This leads to higher lead times with customers, which often results in a lower quote win ratio.

Q: How did you address these challenges before CAM Assist?
A: We started a second shift to keep machines running and added some programming staff. We also planned to add more employees over time to reduce the bottleneck.

Q: When did you start using CAM Assist, and why?
A: We started using CAM Assist in July 2024. At the Farnborough Air Show, our booth was next to CloudNC’s, and we got to see what they were doing. At first, it seemed too good to be true, but they let us try it with a money-back guarantee. After testing it on a few parts, I saw the ROI would be very quick and that it could be a game-changer for our growth.

Q: How do you use CAM Assist, and how does it help?
A: We use it for a lot of build-to-print jobs, which are often low-quantity and non-recurring. Most of the cost on those jobs is in programming and setup. CAM Assist handles 70–90% of the programming, and our programmers fine-tune it, get it on the machine, and certify the first run. This has increased the number of jobs they can program in a day by at least five times.

Q: What difference has CAM Assist made for your business?
A: It has reduced programming time, allowing us to be more price-competitive when pricing matters or add more profit to other jobs. It also gives us more buffer time for handling issues like machine downtime.

Q: What benefits are your customers seeing?
A: Customers benefit from shorter lead times and more competitive pricing. Since we don’t have to hire more staff, we’re keeping overhead stable, which is critical because overhead accounts for about two-thirds of our machine shop costs.

Q: How do you plan to use CAM Assist in the future?
A: Similar to now, but scaling it up. We have two seats with our most proficient programmers, and they’re getting more comfortable with it. As younger talent develops, we’ll add more seats and continue improving how we use the tool.

Q: What impact will CAM Assist have on American manufacturing?
A: For companies that adopt it, it’ll be a competitive advantage. It’s not replacing programmers but acting as a force multiplier—letting one person do ten times as much. It’ll help reduce lead times and increase capacity, which are big pain points in sectors like defense and aerospace.

Q: Can you give an example of the time savings?
A: Sure. We had one skilled programmer take about 1.5–2 hours to program a part. With CAM Assist, it took 7 minutes to get 80% of the way there, and the programmer spent 15 minutes fine-tuning it. So, in 23 minutes, we did what used to take nearly two hours. Multiply that across ten jobs a day, four days a week, and you can see how quickly the ROI adds up.

Q: Anything else you’d like to add?
A: CAM Assist isn’t a perfect solution, but it gets you most of the way there. Our programmers can focus on what they enjoy, doing better work, which makes everyone happier. It’s a win for everyone.

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