Where software earns its keep on the shop floor
Margin in a shop is decided at quote time and lost in the gap between the estimate and what the job actually cost. The operators who scale can see both, in time to act. (See how a 12-system data foundation turned a five-day close into one.)
- Quoting and estimating — capture the estimator’s logic in a tool the whole team can use, fed by real material and labor data instead of last year’s guess
- Job costing and shop-floor visibility — labor, material, and machine time against the estimate while the job is running, not at month end
- The systems around the ERP — scheduling, routing, quality, and customer communication connected to the ERP instead of running around it
Example build: a quoting and job-costing system that reads the drawing package, prices the job from your own history, and shows margin by job while it is on the floor.
(Illustrative — your scope and numbers depend on your operation.)
How we deliver
For a system you already run, a System Evaluation tells you whether to fix it, extend it, replace it, or connect it. For a new tool, a VDP Sprint turns the estimator’s process into a plan with a cost on it before anyone writes code. AI Office automates the paperwork around the work once the data is trustworthy. Highly qualified people, based in Texas, and you own what we build.
Common questions
We have an ERP. Why would we need custom software? Most shops we meet run a large part of the business around the ERP, not in it: quoting in spreadsheets, scheduling on a whiteboard, job costing after the fact. Custom software fills those gaps and connects to the ERP instead of replacing it. When the ERP itself is the problem, that’s a different conversation, and we’ll tell you which one you’re in.
Where do you usually start? Quoting and estimating, or job costing. Both are where experienced people’s judgment is locked up and where a few points of margin hide. A System Evaluation of what you run today, or a VDP Sprint for a new tool, is the first step.
Can AI help on the shop floor? Yes, on the paperwork around it: reading drawings and RFQs, pulling data from supplier documents, flagging jobs drifting off estimate. It works when the underlying job and cost data are trustworthy, which is usually the first thing to fix.