Software for the Shop Floor's Office.
Estimating, work orders, materials, quality packages and production visibility in one custom system — built around your process, integrated with the ERP and accounting you keep, and owned by you.
The ERP Covers the Standard Case.Spreadsheets Cover You.
In most fabrication and custom manufacturing businesses the decisions that actually set margin — how a job was estimated, where it really is, what material is committed, which revision the floor is working to — happen outside the system of record. Here is where that costs.
Estimating lives in one person
Pricing a custom part or a fabricated assembly depends on judgement held by one or two estimators and a spreadsheet only they fully trust. Quoting capacity is capped by their availability, and consistency varies with who priced it.
The job travels on paper
A work order leaves the office as a printed packet and its real status lives on the shop floor. Knowing what stage a job is at means walking out to look, or asking someone who was there.
Material and purchasing blind spots
What has been ordered, what has arrived, and what is committed to which job are tracked in separate places. Shortages surface when a job is already staged rather than when there was still time to act.
Certification and quality records
Mill certs, inspection records, weld maps and test results are scanned into folders. Producing a complete package for a customer or an audit is a manual assembly job every time.
Revisions outrun the floor
A drawing or specification changes and the current version does not reliably reach everyone working to it. Rework from a superseded revision is expensive and hard to trace afterwards.
ERP that does not fit the shop
A general manufacturing package covers the standard case and leaves the parts specific to your process to spreadsheets — which is where the real scheduling and costing decisions end up being made.
Built Around Your Process.
The workflows a manufacturing build in this category would cover. Scope is set against your operation — and deliberately narrow on a first engagement.
Estimating & quoting
Structured estimating that captures materials, labour, outside processing and margin against a rate card, so quotes come out consistent regardless of who prepared them and the basis of a price is recoverable later.
Work orders & job travellers
A digital traveller carrying the job through its operations — scope, drawings, current revision, stage, and who signed off — updated where the work happens rather than reconstructed afterwards.
Production visibility
A live view of what is in progress, what is waiting, and what is at risk against promise dates, so the office can answer a customer without walking the floor.
Materials & purchasing
Requirements, purchase orders, receipts and allocation to jobs held together, so committed stock and incoming material are visible while there is still time to react to a shortage.
Quality & certification packages
Inspection records, certificates and test results captured against the job that produced them, so a complete documentation package assembles itself instead of being compiled by hand.
Revision control
One current version of each drawing and specification, with supersession recorded, so the floor is working to the revision the office thinks it is.
Adjacent Work, Stated Plainly.
We have not delivered a plant-floor production system, and this page will not imply that we have. What we have running in production is the same class of problem in a different setting: structured estimating that took a demolition contractor's bid process from two to three hours down to minutes, and a single operations platform that replaced five systems for a general contractor working across Edmonton and Calgary. Both are client-reported.
Estimating, travellers, document control and integration with accounting are transferable. Machine control is not, and we do not pretend otherwise.
- We do not build machine control. PLC, SCADA, CNC post-processing and anything that drives equipment directly is outside our scope and we will refer it out.
- We are not a full MES or ERP replacement. Where you run an ERP that works, we build the layer it does not cover and integrate with it rather than replacing it.
- We do not do plant-floor hardware, sensors or industrial networking. Our work is the software and data layer above that.
- We will not claim manufacturing references we do not have. The adjacent work below is real and relevant; a plant-floor production system is not something we have shipped, and we will scope any first build on that basis.
Manufacturing Software, Answered.
Have You Built Software for a Manufacturer Before?
Not a plant-floor production system, and we will not imply otherwise. What we have built and run in production is directly adjacent: structured estimating that turned a two-to-three hour bid process into minutes for a demolition contractor, and a single operations platform that replaced five separate systems for a general contractor. Estimating, work orders, document control, approvals and integration with accounting are the same problems in a different setting. If you want a partner who has shipped a comparable manufacturing system before, that is a fair requirement and we would rather you apply it up front.
Would You Replace Our ERP?
Usually not. Most manufacturers we would work with have an ERP or accounting system that handles the standard case adequately and a set of spreadsheets handling everything it does not. The higher-value work is building the layer those spreadsheets are standing in for — estimating, travellers, quality packages — and integrating it with the ERP you keep.
What About MES, SCADA or Machine Data?
Outside our scope. We do not build machine control or industrial networking, and we would refer that work rather than take it on. Where machine or MES data already exists in a system with an interface, consuming it so the office view is accurate is reasonable integration work; generating it is not what we do.
How Would a First Build Be Scoped?
Narrowly and in phases, with the first phase aimed at a single workflow that is measurably costing you — most often estimating or the documentation package. That gives you working software early, a real basis for judging whether to continue, and a scope small enough that the absence of a prior manufacturing reference is a manageable risk rather than a gamble.
Who Owns the System?
You do, and the data in it is yours and exportable. Hosting, data location, access control and export are settled in the scope agreement before a build starts — the Trust Center sets out the questions we work through on every project.
For Alberta manufacturers & fabricators
Book a 30-Minute Call.
30 minutes. We map how a job moves from enquiry to shipped, identify the workflow costing you most, and put a scoped first phase against it — including an honest read on whether we are the right partner.
Edmonton, Alberta · No commitment · 587-937-6948