The story below is from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
Photo above: Courtesy of Jay Foster
Photo below: Dan Smith
Roanoke-founded Flex-Metrics and SoftSolutions provide the answers manufacturers need to run efficiently, cut costs and provide better products.
Roanoke native Jay Foster is one of a generation of regional technology entrepreneurs who began setting standards more than a quarter of a century ago while he was still in college at Virginia Tech. Some have labeled this group “superheroes of technology.”
Foster founded SoftSolutions 25 years ago and it has evolved into Flex-Metrics with basically the same goals. The company has “continuously evolved but the mission of providing easy access to trustworthy information [about the manufacturing process] has remained constant,” says the company’s explanation of what it does.
The information in question has to do with the efficiency and productivity of factory floors. In the last quarter-century, Flex-Metrics has deployed its software to more than 1,000 production lines to improve productivity by furnishing immediate and vital data that helps improve the entire process of manufacturing by closely monitoring activity, risks and waste.
Project coordinator Jennifer May says that’s the company’s “bread and butter” and the key to engaging the changing workforce within the manufacturing sector. The basics include a user-friendly software program and a simple device, like an activity tracker, for monitoring. “The bottom line,” she says, “Flex provides an automated scorecard and collaboration platform for frontline leaders.”
Flex-Metrics charges per subscription to the software and licenses per machine. It provides considerable support after the system goes online. “It is very hands-on,” says May. The package also involves training when needed.
When Chief Technical Officer Foster (who was unavailable for interview at the time this was written; he was out of the country) founded SoftSolutions, says May, “He saw the potential in how much better manufacturing could be.” Before the program was available, manufacturers were often “assuming what production is [doing] and often overproducing. There is a lot of waste and that is a big area of importance. One of the features of our program is automatic-count control.” There are also foreign language translation features since Flex-Metrics currently supports clients in six countries.
The company has 11 employees, not all of them techies. May, for example, has an art history degree from Virginia Commonwealth University, but she worked at LewisGale Hospital for eight years “organizing things,” which is basically what she does now, she says. The employees are a diverse group, ranging in age from 22 to 60 or so. “We work really well together,” she says. Most of the employees work remotely, some in other states.
Among the clients Flex-Metrics serves are Revlon, Spectrum Brands, Dart packaging, Energizer, SOLO Cup, Bertelsmann (which printed the first “Harry Potter” books) and a number of others whose products you’d know.
Post-pandemic manufacturing has faced special challenges, such as a severe shortage of skilled workers, that Flex-Metrics has been able to help with, says May.
Flex-Metrics is based in the RAMP building on Jefferson Street in downtown Roanoke primarily because Foster has been heavily involved in RAMP’s programming since it began and he has also been an officer with the Roanoke-Blacksburg Technology Council for years.
“This combination of market demand for shop-floor automation, along with the exciting evolution of cloud-based technologies, provides an excellent opportunity to leverage our quarter century of experience in this space to help even more market leaders within the global manufacturing sector,” says Foster.
Here is a timeline of Flex-Metrics accomplishments:
- 1998, Feb 28 Flex was conceived and founded by Jay Foster in Roanoke under the name SoftSolutions with the goal to create “soft solutions” to hard problems in the manufacturing industry by empowering decision makers with trustworthy, real-time information.
- 2009 Printing Industries of America awards Flex the InterTech Award for its operating system’s ability to extract accurate machine production data cost-effectively and push to MSIs.
- 2013 ERP integration introduced, reducing the need for double entry into a client’s ERP system and Flex.
- 2015 Flex enters the Latin American market.
- 2019 Flex enters the Canadian market. 100 production lines have real-time visibility through Flex.
- 2020 Flex enters European and South Pacific markets. 1,000 production lines have real-time visibility through Flex.
- 2021 Flex’s Andon displays are introduced, furthering its mission of easy access to trustworthy information, and increasing workforce engagement.
- 2022 Flex Operator portal adds translation functionality for Spanish, German and French to support communication among multi-lingual staff.
- 2023 Flex-Insights is released allowing for production data to be securely pushed into a cloud-based reporting format. This allows for multi-site visibility for enterprise-level clients.
The story above is from our May/June 2023 issue. For more stories like it, Subscribe Today. Thank you!
