For Independent CNC, weld, sheet metal, and make-to-order job shops
See which machines sat idle or spent the shift in setup
Your newest machine looks busy because someone is always standing at it. In practice it spent half the shift in setup or waiting on material or a program. Without a clear number per machine, you buy capacity you already have.
What it can cost you
Example: a machine billed at $120 an hour running 10 fewer hours a week than it could = $1,200 a week, or $62,400 a year in capacity.An illustration, not a promise. Your Opportunity Scan puts a real number on it.
What the system checks overnight
- Compares run hours to available hours per machine by shift.
- Tracks setup hours as a share of total machine time by machine and part family.
- Flags shifts where a machine had no job clocked on it.
- Groups downtime reasons such as waiting on material, program, inspection, or maintenance.
- Compares setup time on repeat parts to their last run.
Where it reads from
- JobBOSS², ProShop ERP, Global Shop Solutions, ECI M1, or Epicor (labor and machine tickets)
- Machine monitoring data, if the shop has it
What happens when it fires
You and the foreman look at setups, programs, and scheduling on that machine. The system suggests grouping jobs by setup and lists repeat parts whose setup keeps growing.
Autonomy level: Suggest only. The brief tells you what changed and what to do. Nothing happens without you.
What we guarantee
Run, setup, and idle hours rolled up for every machine each morning for the prior shift. We agree on the metric before the Sprint starts and measure it over the first 20 business days after go-live. If we miss it, you get half your Sprint fee back. Dollar savings are tracked in your monthly saves log, reported rather than promised.
Questions
We do not have machine monitoring. Can this still work?
Yes. It uses labor tickets clocked to each machine. It is less precise than monitoring, but it is enough to see which machines are badly underused.
Is high utilization always the goal?
Not always. It shows you where the time goes so you can decide which machines need more work and which are your real bottleneck.
Do I need new software for this?
No. The system reads from the tools you already use, with read-only access by default. A guardrail layer controls exactly which data the AI can see.
What does it cost?
A 3-week Sprint is $6,000 fixed and includes the morning brief plus one automation tied to an agreed metric. Ongoing support is $1,500 a month, or $500 a month to keep it running without new automations. If the agreed metric is missed over the first 20 business days after go-live, half the Sprint fee is refunded.
How is this different from a dashboard app or a free AI kit?
A dashboard app shows numbers when you go look. A free AI kit gives you the parts, and you do the setup, the upkeep, and the checking. Here the alarms are built for your kind of business, they watch outside data like market rates and rule changes alongside yours, and on Run or Keep-Running, the person who built them keeps them working and logs what they caught.
More alarms for machine and fabrication job shops
Seven more things worth watching.
- Jobs running over estimated hoursCompare hours clocked to estimated hours on every open job, operation by operation, so you can step in before the whole job's margin is gone.
- Repeat orders at a losing priceWhen a repeat PO comes in, compare its price to what that part really cost on past runs, so you requote losing parts instead of repeating them.
- RFQs sitting unquotedTrack every RFQ from inbox to quote by estimator and due date, so good opportunities from your best customers do not age out unanswered.
- Orders about to ship lateCompare remaining routing hours, work center load, material, and outside processing to each promise date, so late orders are caught early.
- Material and outside process cost creepCompare vendor invoices for metal, plating, heat treat, and coating to PO prices and quoted costs, so supplier increases get caught early.
- Paid hours not landing on jobsCompare paid hours to hours clocked on work orders by employee and shift, so indirect time and clocking gaps stop hiding in your shop rate.
- Shipped but not invoicedMatch every packing slip to an invoice and every invoice to its PO price, so shipped work does not sit unbilled or go out at the wrong amount.
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