Manufacturing ERP Use Case: Custom Metal Fabrication

Custom metal fabrication is one of the most demanding manufacturing disciplines. Every job is different. Tolerances are tight. Materials are expensive. And clients expect flawless results delivered on schedule. For shops running on spreadsheets and whiteboards, keeping up with that complexity eventually becomes impossible.

This use case explores how a mid-sized custom metal fabrication shop transformed its production workflow using a manufacturing ERP system—and what other job shops can learn from the process.

The Challenge: Managing Complexity Without Visibility#

Consider a typical custom fabrication shop with 25 employees, handling 40 to 60 active projects at any given time. Each project involves unique specifications: different steel grades, varying thicknesses, custom welding requirements, and distinct finishing processes. The shop floor juggles cutting, bending, welding, assembly, and quality inspection—often simultaneously.

Before adopting production management software, the shop faced recurring problems:

• Material waste: Without accurate BOM tracking, operators frequently cut from wrong stock or over-ordered raw materials.
• Missed deadlines: No centralized scheduling meant jobs competed for the same machines and skilled welders without anyone seeing the conflict until it was too late.
• Quality escapes: Inspection checklists lived on paper. When a weld defect slipped through, tracing it back to the root cause took days.
• Quoting inaccuracies: Estimators relied on memory and gut feeling rather than historical production data, leading to underpriced bids that eroded margins.

These are not unusual problems. They are the daily reality for thousands of small and mid-sized fabrication businesses that have outgrown manual tracking but haven't yet adopted a BOM management system or integrated production planning software.

The Solution: Connecting the Entire Production Workflow#

The shop implemented InFlow Manufacturing as its manufacturing ERP for small business operations. Rather than trying to digitize everything at once, the team rolled out the system in phases, starting with the areas causing the most pain.

Phase 1: Bill of Materials and Material Control#

Every new project now starts with a structured BOM built directly in the system. Each bill of materials includes raw material specifications, purchased components like fasteners and brackets, and subassemblies such as pre-welded frames. When a project is approved, the BOM software automatically checks current inventory levels and flags what needs to be ordered.

The result was immediate. Material waste dropped because operators pulled from the correct stock every time. Purchasing became proactive instead of reactive, and the shop stopped paying rush delivery fees for materials that should have been on hand.

Phase 2: Work Order Management and Scheduling#

Next, the shop digitized its work order process. Each project generates a series of work orders tied to specific operations: laser cutting, press brake forming, MIG welding, powder coating, and final assembly. Every work order includes the relevant BOM items, operation instructions, and time estimates based on historical data.

With production planning software handling the scheduling, the shop manager could finally see the full picture. Capacity planning tools showed which machines were overloaded and which had open time. When a priority job came in, the manager could reschedule lower-priority work orders without making phone calls or walking the floor.

Phase 3: Quality Control and Traceability#

The final phase addressed quality. The shop defined inspection checkpoints at critical stages—after welding, after surface preparation, and before shipping. Inspectors log results directly in the system, including dimensional measurements and photographic evidence of weld quality.

When a client reported a cosmetic defect on a delivered batch, the quality team traced it back to a specific work order, operator, and time window within minutes. They identified that a new powder coating supplier's material was curing inconsistently and resolved the issue before it affected other projects. That kind of traceability simply wasn't possible with paper records.

Measurable Results After Six Months#

After six months of running on the manufacturing ERP system, the fabrication shop documented concrete improvements across its operations:

• Material waste reduced by 18% through accurate BOM tracking and inventory visibility.
• On-time delivery improved from 74% to 93% with centralized scheduling and capacity planning.
• Quote accuracy increased by 22% because estimators could reference actual production times and material costs from past jobs.
• Quality rejection rate dropped by 40% due to systematic inspection checkpoints and faster root cause analysis.
• Shop floor communication improved significantly as operators accessed work orders, drawings, and BOM details from tablets on the floor instead of hunting for paper travelers.

These gains didn't require a massive IT investment or months of downtime. The best MRP software 2025 options, including InFlow Manufacturing, are designed for small and mid-sized operations that need powerful functionality without enterprise-level complexity.

Key Lessons for Other Job Shops#

This fabrication shop's experience offers practical takeaways for any manufacturing business considering production management software:

• Start with your biggest bottleneck. You don't need to digitize everything on day one. Identify where you lose the most time or money and begin there.
• Build accurate BOMs from the start. A BOM management system is only as good as the data in it. Invest time upfront to structure your bills of materials correctly, and they become the foundation for everything else.
• Use real production data to improve estimates. Once your manufacturing ERP captures actual cycle times and material usage, feed that data back into your quoting process. Better quotes mean better margins.
• Make quality control part of the workflow, not an afterthought. Embedding inspection checkpoints into work orders ensures that quality isn't something you check at the end—it's built into every stage of production.
• Give the shop floor access. Production planning software delivers the most value when operators can see their work orders, report progress, and flag issues in real time rather than waiting for a supervisor to relay information.

Is Your Shop Ready for This Kind of Transformation?#

If your fabrication shop, machine shop, or any custom manufacturing operation is wrestling with the problems described above—material waste, scheduling conflicts, quality gaps, and inaccurate quotes—a manufacturing ERP system built for small business can change the trajectory of your operations.

InFlow Manufacturing provides the production planning, BOM management, work order tracking, quality control, and capacity planning tools that growing manufacturers need, without the overhead and complexity of legacy enterprise systems.

Try Manufacturing Module and see how InFlow can bring the same clarity and control to your shop floor.