How do you deliver quality, personalized products in a reasonable amount of time, and at a competitive price?   Once you’ve addressed that challenge, how do you ensure enough profit margin to keep your business growing?   These are questions that many custom product manufacturers are struggling to answer. 

Brent Davidson president of Sculpt Garage, a leading provider of full custom auto-interiors, believes he has the answers.  He’s joined hundreds of business leaders who’ve made the decision to transition to digital best practices.  We had a chance to speak with Brent to get his perspective on selecting this approach.

Can you tell us a little about yourself?

I’m a designer who likes the fabrication aspects of the project just as much as I enjoy the design process.  I started my professional career as a Car Audio Designer and Fabrication Specialist.  Along the way I gained key experience with industry leaders such as the Concept Project team at Alpine Audio.  I’ve worked on a variety of different product types, but my passion has always been for Auto interiors.

Why did you open a studio focused on classic car restoration?

I did that because I saw a big need in the market that wasn’t being addressed.   First, there were traditional designers who just seemed to be "stuck" using legacy methods and delivering the same old "flat" products. 

On the flip side, there were the newcomers in the market that quoted more interesting looking projects with curves and blends.  But they often over-promised, and then under-delivered when it came to providing clients with the custom products they wanted.

What’s your vision with Sculpt Garage?

Well, our goal is to find ways to tackle our clients unique design requests with out-of-the-box thinking.  We’re hoping to be able to use technology solutions in order to:

• deliver innovative, truly sculpted automotive interior solutions

• ensure that the projects are completed in a reasonable amount of time

• minimize the cost risk to both the client and our business.  

How do you see digital best practices helping you reach your goals?

The transition to digital is a big part of our plans to streamline the process.   One interesting thing is that it didn’t take us long to settled on a workable process improvement plan once we met with the experts at ExactFlat.

 What do you see as the key benefits of transitioning to digital?

Basically, we’re hitting all our goals with this change.  We’re getting more exciting designs, faster.  If that was all we got we’d be happy. But there’s so much more.  The sculpted, organic shapes we create are quite complex, and the quality materials we use can be expensive.  There's really no room for error.  We’re still early in the process but from what we’ve seen so far, we’re convinced that the changes will address our and time and cost control challenges.  We’re expecting to take days, if not weeks’ worth of re-design, sample making and fit testing out of the process.  The move to digital is a win-win for us and our clients.

High Quality results with predictable schedules and costs

In the second part of this interview, we’ll explore the specific steps Brent and his team plan to employ to achieve the benefits of a digital process. We’ll get an overview of how these new, automation tools replace and/or fit seamlessly within the existing processes. We’ll also take a closer look at the benefits the team sees at each step of the process.

About the partner

Sculpt Garage is a small independent shop specializing in full custom automotive interiors. The Texas-based company was founded by Brent Davison, a design and fabrication specialist.  Brent enjoys problem solving on vehicle designs and sees every project as an opportunity to build something that has never been done before.