Industry · Manufacturing

ERP for metal fabrication shops that quote, cut and ship custom work

Fabrication shops live and die by their quotes. Price too low and the job loses money; price too high and the work goes elsewhere. Yet in most shops we visit, estimating happens in a spreadsheet built by one person, using material prices from last quarter and labour rates nobody has checked against actual hours.

Discuss Fabrication ERP Implementation roadmap

M01Estimating & Sales
M02Manufacturing (Jobs)
M03Inventory
M04Purchasing
M05Accounting
M06Quality

Context

ERP in metal fabrication

A fabrication ERP connects the estimate to the job that follows: the same material, the same operations and the same rates, so after the job ships you can see exactly where the estimate was right and where it was not.

01Operational challenges

What usually breaks before the ERP project starts

Estimates disconnected from actuals

Quotes are built in spreadsheets and never compared with real material usage and labour hours.

Material buying by feel

Sheet, plate and bar stock bought in bulk without visibility of which jobs will consume it or what remnants are already on the rack.

Traceability requests

Customers ask for mill certificates and heat numbers for a part shipped months ago, and finding them means searching paper files.

Bottlenecks at shared machines

Laser, press brake and welding bays are overloaded some weeks and idle others, with no forward view of load.

02Core flows

How the ERP should handle each part of the business

Sales flow: Estimates are built from a part's material, cut length or area, operations and outside processes, priced at current costs. Approved quotes convert to sales orders and jobs without retyping. Repeat parts reuse the previous routing and cost history.
Procurement: Material requirements aggregate across open jobs, so buyers see total sheet or bar demand by grade and thickness. Outside processing — galvanising, powder coating, machining — is purchased against the job with the cost attached.
Inventory: Raw stock tracked by grade, thickness, size and heat number. Remnants can be recorded as stock with their dimensions so they are used before a new sheet is cut. Finished parts for repeat customers can be stocked against forecast.
Warehouse: Receipts capture heat numbers and mill certificates. Material is issued to jobs at the cutting stage, and finished parts move to packing and shipping with the job's documentation.
Manufacturing: Routings cover cutting, deburring, bending, welding, finishing and inspection, with work centres for each machine type. Operators log time by operation, and supervisors see a queue per machine.
Accounting: Each job accumulates material, labour, machine time and outside processing. Job profitability is visible as soon as the job closes, and progress billing is supported for larger contracts.
CRM: Estimators track open quotes, win rates by customer and reasons for lost quotes. Repeat customers' drawing revisions are linked to their parts so the right version is always quoted.

03Industry workflows

Workflows specific to metal fabrication

Estimate to job

The estimate's material and routing become the job's planned material and operations, giving a direct comparison after completion.

Heat-number traceability

Mill certificates attached at receipt, heat numbers carried through cutting to finished parts, and certificates included in shipping documents.

Remnant management

Off-cuts above a minimum size recorded as stock with dimensions and offered first when nesting new jobs.

Outside processing

Parts shipped to a coater or plater on a subcontract order and received back into the job with cost and lead time tracked.

04 — Reporting

Reports that should come out of the system, not a spreadsheet

Estimate vs actual by job: material, labour and outside processing
Machine load by week for laser, brake and welding
Quote win rate by customer and estimator
Material on hand by grade and thickness, including remnants
Late jobs and causes
Gross margin by customer and part family

05 — Compliance

Compliance considerations

Structural and pressure work may require welder qualifications, welding procedure specifications and material traceability. Customers in construction, energy or defence often demand mill certificates and inspection records with every shipment. Storing certificates against heat numbers and linking them to shipped parts makes these requests routine.

Regulatory requirements vary by jurisdiction. We configure the system to support your obligations; confirm specific rules with your auditor or compliance advisor.

06 — Integrations

Systems the ERP needs to talk to

Nesting software for laser and plasma cutting is the key integration: exporting job parts and importing nest results with actual material consumption. CAD data for part geometry, carrier platforms for shipping and accounting for progress billing are common additions.

07AI opportunities

Where AI is genuinely useful here

Practical uses that sit on top of clean ERP data. None of them replace getting the core transactions right first.

Drawing-to-estimate assistance

Extract dimensions, material callouts and finishes from customer drawings to pre-fill estimate lines for review.

Certificate capture

Read mill certificates on receipt and record heat numbers and chemistry against the material lot.

Similar-job lookup

Find previous jobs with comparable parts and show their actual costs to inform new quotes.

08ERP modules

Modules a typical deployment includes

M01Estimating & Sales
M02Manufacturing (Jobs)
M03Inventory
M04Purchasing
M05Accounting
M06Quality
M07Documents
M08Shop Floor

09Roadmap

Implementation roadmap

01
Standardise estimating
Agree labour and machine rates, material pricing rules and a standard estimate structure.
02
Jobs and material
Go live with estimates, jobs, material purchasing and inventory by grade and heat.
03
Shop-floor time capture
Operators record time by operation on tablets at each work centre.
04
Close the loop
Monthly estimate-versus-actual review feeding back into rates and estimating rules.

10Common mistakes

Mistakes we see repeatedly

Not capturing actual hours

Without operation-level time, job costing reverts to estimates and the system cannot improve quoting.

Treating material as generic

Recording sheet stock without grade, thickness and heat makes traceability impossible later.

Ignoring nesting integration

Manually re-entering parts into nesting software reintroduces errors the ERP was meant to remove.

Overcomplicating routings

One operation per machine is usually enough. Splitting steps finer adds data entry without better decisions.

Explore further

Related services, solutions and platforms

Services

Solutions

ERP platform

Insights

Frequently asked questions

Can the ERP handle one-off custom jobs?

Yes. Each job can have its own BOM and routing derived from the estimate, without creating permanent product records for one-off parts.

Does it integrate with nesting software?

Integration depends on the nesting system's export and import capabilities. Most support file-based exchange of parts and nest results, which we automate.

Can we attach mill certificates to shipments?

Yes. Certificates stored at receipt can be printed or emailed with the shipping documents for the parts made from that heat.

How do we handle progress billing on large jobs?

Milestone or percentage-of-completion invoicing can be configured against the sales order, with costs tracked on the job.

Similar industries

Industries with related workflows

ManufacturingBOMs, routings, MRP, shop-floor control, costing and traceability for discrete and mixed-mode manufacturers.Plastic ManufacturingERP for injection moulding and extrusion: resin and regrind, tooling, cavities, cycle times and scrap.FurnitureConfigurable products, panel and timber planning, finishes, delivery scheduling and showroom sales.

Next step

Want to know whether your quotes make money?

We will show you how estimate-to-job costing would work in your shop.

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