An 85-person precision metal fabrication company was tracking inspections, nonconformances, corrective actions, and calibrations in a 13-year-old Access database. After a customer audit flagged overdue calibrations and slow corrective-action closure, Access Evolved rebuilt the system on Power Apps, Dataverse, Power Automate, and Power BI in 16 weeks. The company now saves about 1,950 staff hours and $135,000 a year, and recovered its investment in under nine months.
Representative engagement: this case study combines typical scope, timelines, and outcomes from Access Evolved projects. Organization details are illustrative, and results will vary by system and organization.
A mid-sized precision fabrication manufacturer replaced an Access-based quality system with a Power Platform solution. Today inspectors record results on tablets at the machine, corrective actions are tracked to closure automatically, and audit evidence is a report instead of a scramble.
At a glance
- Organization: Precision metal fabrication manufacturer, 1 plant, ~85 staff, ISO 9001 certified
- Legacy system: Microsoft Access (split front-end/back-end on a shared drive), built in 2011
- New platform: Power Apps (model-driven and canvas), Dataverse, Power Automate, Power BI, SharePoint
- Timeline: 16 weeks from diagnostic to go-live, plus 4 weeks of post-launch support
- Result: ~1,950 hours/year saved, ~$135,000/year net savings, payback in about 8–9 months
The Organization and Its Access Database
The company’s quality department ran on an Access database built in 2011 by a former quality engineer. Over 13 years it grew to about 70 tables, 150+ queries, 35 forms, and several thousand lines of undocumented VBA.
It supported the work the company needed to stay certified and keep its customers:
- Incoming, in-process, and final inspection records
- Nonconformance reports (NCRs)
- Corrective and preventive actions (CAPA)
- Gauge and equipment calibration schedules
- Supplier scorecards and incoming material issues
- Customer complaints and monthly quality reports
The database sat on a shared drive with up to 12 users connected at once. Inspectors recorded measurements on paper at the machine and a clerk typed them in later. The engineer who built it had since left, and the quality manager was reluctant to touch the VBA.
Why They Needed to Modernize
The decision was forced by a customer audit: auditors found two gauges past their calibration due date and corrective actions that stayed open for months with no escalation. The audit finding sat on top of problems the team had managed around for years:
- Paper at the machine. Inspection data was recorded on paper, then re-keyed, often a day later and sometimes with errors.
- Slow corrective action. Open NCRs and CAPAs were tracked by a spreadsheet and a weekly meeting, so issues lingered and defects repeated.
- Missed calibrations. Due dates lived in a report someone had to remember to run.
- Frequent downtime. The back-end locked up or corrupted several times a quarter, usually at peak shop hours.
- Manual reporting. Monthly customer quality reports and audit evidence took days to compile.
- Growth limits. The plant was adding a second shift, and the database was already slow with 12 users.
Leadership’s question was how to move to a modern system without interrupting production or jeopardizing the company’s certification.
Our Approach: Seven Phases Over 16 Weeks
We kept the Access database running for the entire project, so quality records were never interrupted.
- Diagnostic and documentation (weeks 1–2). We stabilized the Access back-end, then mapped every table, query, form, and VBA routine. Interviews with inspectors, supervisors, and the quality manager captured rules that lived only in people’s heads. The result was a written blueprint the client owns.
- Data cleanup and Dataverse design (weeks 3–5). We standardized years of inconsistent part numbers, defect codes, and supplier names, then designed a normalized Dataverse model with role-based security. Inspectors see their own work, supervisors see their areas, and quality sees everything.
- App build (weeks 6–11). We built a model-driven app for quality staff (NCRs, CAPA, calibration, suppliers) and a canvas tablet app for inspectors to record measurements and defects at the machine, with pass/fail logic built in.
- Automation (weeks 9–12). Power Automate replaced the VBA and manual routines. It sends calibration due-date alerts at 30 and 7 days, routes new NCRs to the responsible supervisor, escalates overdue corrective actions, and notifies suppliers of material issues.
- Reporting (weeks 11–13). Power BI dashboards replaced hand-built monthly reports, with views for defect trends, supplier performance, and audit evidence that refresh automatically.
- Parallel run and migration (weeks 14–15). Both systems ran side by side for two weeks while we reconciled record counts and outputs. Final data migration happened over a weekend.
- Training and go-live (week 16), then four weeks of hypercare. Role-based training for inspectors, supervisors, and quality staff, short how-to videos, and same-day support after launch. The Access database was archived read-only.
Results: Time and Money Saved
The company now saves about 1,950 staff hours a year, and the audit finding was closed at the next customer review.
| Area | Before | After | Hours saved per year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inspection data entry | Paper at the machine, re-keyed by a clerk (~3 hrs/day) | Entered once on a tablet | ~750 |
| NCR and CAPA tracking | ~10 hrs/week of chasing and spreadsheets | ~2 hrs/week with automated routing and escalation | ~416 |
| Monthly and audit reporting | ~35 hrs/month by hand | ~5 hrs/month (dashboards) | ~360 |
| Database downtime and repairs | ~20 lost staff-hours a month | No corruption incidents since go-live | ~240 |
| Calibration tracking | ~4 hrs/week | ~0.5 hrs/week with automatic alerts | ~182 |
| Total | ~1,948 |
Annual financial impact
- Staff time recovered (1,948 hrs at a blended $40/hr): ~$78,000
- Scrap and rework reduced through faster corrective action: ~$62,000
- Customer chargebacks and re-inspection avoided: ~$12,000
- Emergency repair calls eliminated: ~$7,000
- Less added Power Platform licensing: –$24,000
- Net savings: ~$135,000 per year
With a project investment of about $98,000, the company recovered its cost in roughly eight to nine months.
Beyond the numbers, the system supports the second shift without changes, inspectors no longer carry paper, and the quality manager sees open issues and calibration status in real time instead of at the weekly meeting.
What Made It Work
- Stabilize first, migrate second. Keeping Access running during the build meant quality records were never interrupted.
- Start at the machine. Designing the tablet app with the inspectors made adoption nearly automatic.
- Automate the escalation. Corrective actions closed faster because overdue items no longer depended on someone noticing.
- Prove it before cutover. Two weeks of parallel running caught data issues before they reached production.
Is your quality system running on an Access database that only one person understands? Book a free diagnostic and we’ll show you what a modernization path would look like for your operation.