For Independent CNC, weld, sheet metal, and make-to-order job shops
Find paid shop hours that never get booked to a job
Payroll pays for every hour people are in the building, but only part of those hours land on work orders. The rest is cleanup, waiting, looking for tools, or simply not clocked. It does not show up as a cost on any job, so it quietly raises what every job really costs.
What it can cost you
Example: 12 operators each with 5 more indirect hours a week than you planned, at $32 an hour loaded = $1,920 a week.An illustration, not a promise. Your Opportunity Scan puts a real number on it.
What the system checks overnight
- Compares paid hours from the time clock to direct hours clocked to work orders, by employee and shift.
- Tracks indirect hours by code, such as cleanup, maintenance, training, or waiting.
- Flags gaps where an employee was on the clock but not on any job or indirect code.
- Compares direct hours share by shift and by department.
- Tracks the trend week to week so a slow slide is visible.
Where it reads from
- JobBOSS², ProShop ERP, Global Shop Solutions, ECI M1, or Epicor (labor tickets)
- Payroll or time clock exports
What happens when it fires
You and the shift lead decide what to fix, whether clocking habits, material staging, or staffing. The system lists the biggest gaps by shift and drafts a short note for the shift lead.
Autonomy level: Suggest only. The brief tells you what changed and what to do. Nothing happens without you.
What we guarantee
Paid versus direct hours reconciled for every employee each week, with unclocked gaps listed by 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
Will my operators see this as being watched?
It is a shop level and shift level view first. Most gaps turn out to be process problems like waiting on material, not people slacking.
Our time clock is separate from the ERP. Is that okay?
Yes. It reads both and lines them up by employee and day.
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.
- Machines idle or stuck in long setupsCompare run hours to available hours per machine and track setup time per job, so your most expensive machines spend more time making parts.
- 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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