FreedomDev builds custom software for metal fabrication shops — job tracking, quoting, shop floor data collection, and CNC integration for fabricators who have outgrown whiteboards, spreadsheets, and generic job shop software. 20+ years building software for manufacturers in Michigan and across the Midwest.
Walk into any metal fabrication shop running 15 to 150 people and you will find the same scene: a whiteboard near the front office with job numbers written in dry-erase marker, color-coded by status. Green means cutting. Blue means welding. Red means it should have shipped yesterday. A binder on the shop foreman's desk holds paper job travelers — each one a packet of routing sheets, material certs, and customer drawings that follows the job from station to station. When a customer calls to ask where their order is, someone walks the floor, finds the traveler, and calls back with an answer that was already outdated by the time they picked up the phone. This is how the majority of the 30,000+ metal fabrication shops in the United States still track production. Not because they want to, but because the alternatives have not worked for them. Generic ERP systems built for discrete manufacturing assume repetitive production runs with fixed routings and standard BOMs. That is not how a custom fab shop operates.
A metal fabrication job shop runs on variability. Monday morning brings an RFQ for 12 custom stainless steel brackets — material, laser cut, brake form, weld, powder coat, ship. Tuesday brings a repeat order for 500 mild steel plates — plasma cut only, two operations, out the door by Thursday. Wednesday brings an emergency repair job for a local OEM that needs a one-off weldment reverse-engineered from a broken part with no drawing. Each of these jobs requires different materials, different machines, different operations, different quality requirements, and different pricing models. A system that forces every job into the same routing template will either be too rigid for the custom work or too loose to provide meaningful tracking on the production runs. This is why fabrication shops that tried JobBOSS, E2, or Epicor often end up back on the whiteboard — the software could not flex to match how their shop actually works.
The real cost of whiteboard-and-binder job tracking is not the time spent updating the board. It is the information that never gets captured. When a job sits at the welding station for six hours waiting because the welder is tied up on a rush order, that queue time is invisible. When an operator scraps three parts during laser cutting because the nested pattern had a kerf allowance error, the scrap reason never makes it into a system where someone can analyze it. When Job 4782 consumed 14% more material than estimated because the DXF file was drawn at a different gauge thickness than what purchasing ordered, nobody connects those dots until the end-of-month margin report shows the job lost money. Every piece of data that does not get captured at the point of production is a piece of data that cannot be used to quote more accurately, schedule more efficiently, or identify where the shop is bleeding margin.
FreedomDev builds job tracking systems designed specifically for the variability that defines metal fabrication. Flexible routing structures that accommodate one-off custom jobs and 500-piece production runs on the same platform. Real-time status tracking via barcode scanning, tablet input, or machine integration — so the whiteboard is replaced with a live dashboard visible to the office, the floor, and the customer portal. Material traceability that links every piece of steel, aluminum, or stainless to a mill cert, a heat number, and the jobs it was consumed on. And shop floor data collection that captures the scrap events, queue times, and machine utilization numbers your shop needs to actually understand its own cost structure. This is not generic manufacturing software configured for fabrication. It is fabrication software built from the ground up by a team that has spent 20 years in Michigan shops where metal gets cut, formed, welded, and shipped.
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Metal fabrication quoting is part science, part institutional knowledge, and part guesswork. The estimator looks at a drawing, mentally walks through the operations — laser cut from 0.25-inch mild steel plate, deburr, two brake form bends, MIG weld a bracket, blast and powder coat — and assigns a price based on experience, a material cost lookup, and a shop rate that may or may not reflect actual overhead. For a shop running 200-400 quotes per month, only 15-25% of those quotes turn into orders. The ones that win are often the jobs you underpriced. The ones you lose were priced correctly but the customer went to a competitor who made the same underpricing mistake you avoided. Without a feedback loop from actual job costs back into the quoting process, every estimate is disconnected from reality. The estimator does not know that laser cutting on the Trumpf 3030 runs 22% slower on 304 stainless than their rate card assumes, or that welding a similar bracket assembly last month took 40% longer than estimated because the fit-up required grinding. This gap between estimated and actual cost is where fabrication shops lose money — not in obvious ways, but in a slow erosion of margin across hundreds of jobs per year.
A metal fabrication shop buys steel, aluminum, stainless, and specialty alloys in sheets, plates, bars, tubes, and structural shapes. Material is the largest single cost component — typically 40-60% of job cost. Yet most fab shops track material inventory with a combination of purchase orders, physical bin counts, and an operator's memory of what is left on the remnant rack. When the plasma table operator pulls a 4x8 sheet of 11-gauge mild steel from the rack, that consumption is not recorded until someone does a physical count or the purchasing agent realizes stock is low because a job could not start. Remnants — the usable pieces left over after nesting — are an even bigger problem. A 48x96 sheet yields parts for three different jobs and leaves a 48x31 remnant. That remnant goes back on the rack with a paint marker note of the material type and gauge. Six weeks later, nobody remembers it is there and purchasing buys a full sheet for a job that could have used the remnant. Multiply this by 50-100 sheets per week and the cost of untracked remnants alone can exceed $30,000-$80,000 annually in a mid-size fab shop. Shops that serve aerospace, defense, or nuclear customers face additional traceability requirements: every part must trace back to a specific mill cert and heat number, and that chain of custody must be documented from raw material receipt through final shipment.
A fiber laser that costs $500,000-$2,000,000 needs to be cutting metal to pay for itself. A CNC press brake that cost $250,000 generates revenue only when it is forming parts. Yet most fab shops have no accurate measurement of machine utilization — the percentage of available time a machine is actually running production. The foreman's estimate ('the laser runs most of the day') is not data. Without actual utilization numbers, you cannot identify bottlenecks, justify capital expenditure for a second machine, or determine whether adding a night shift would pay for itself. The data required — machine run time, idle time, setup time, and downtime categorized by reason — exists inside the machine controller. Modern CNC lasers from Trumpf, Mazak, AMADA, and Bystronic all expose operational data through their controllers. CNC press brakes from Trumpf, Amada, and Bystronic do the same. But extracting that data and routing it into a system where it becomes actionable requires integration work that most fab shops have never attempted. The result: machines that cost six or seven figures sit idle for 30-50% of available production hours, and nobody quantifies the lost capacity because there is no measurement system in place.
The nesting software is where fabrication efficiency is won or lost. SigmaNEST, ProNest by Hypertherm, Trumpf TruTops, Lantek, and similar platforms take a collection of part geometries — imported as DXF, DWG, STEP, or IGES files — and arrange them on a sheet of material to maximize utilization and minimize scrap. A skilled programmer using SigmaNEST can push sheet utilization above 85%, compared to 60-70% for manual nesting. But here is the disconnect: the nesting software knows exactly how many sheets of 0.25-inch 304 stainless a job requires, how much scrap each nest generates, and how long the cutting program will take. That information lives inside the nesting application and rarely flows into the ERP, quoting system, or job tracking platform. The estimator quoted the job assuming 3 sheets. The nesting programmer determined it actually requires 4 sheets because the geometry does not nest efficiently. Nobody updates the job cost until after the material is already cut. On the output side, the NC code generated by the nesting software goes to the laser, plasma, or waterjet controller — but the controller's production data (actual cut time, pierce counts, material consumed) does not flow back into the nesting system or the job tracker.
A single fabrication job might pass through seven or eight operations: laser cutting, deburring, punching, brake forming, welding, grinding, surface prep, and powder coating or painting. Each operation has different equipment, different operators with different skill levels, and different capacity constraints. The laser can cut parts for 20 jobs in a day, but the welding department can only process 8 of those jobs because you have three certified welders and two of them are working on a large structural weldment. The brake press can form 500 parts per shift on simple bends but only 40 parts per shift on complex multi-bend assemblies that require repositioning. Scheduling this mix — where each job has a unique routing through a shared set of constrained resources — is a finite capacity scheduling problem that spreadsheets cannot solve once the shop exceeds 30-40 active jobs. The whiteboard shows what is supposed to happen today. It does not show the ripple effect of the welding bottleneck on every downstream job, or what happens to the schedule when the laser goes down for a two-hour lens replacement, or which jobs can be pulled forward to keep the powder coat line running while the welding backlog clears.
Fabrication shops that serve aerospace (AS9100), defense (ITAR/DFARS), nuclear (NQA-1), or pressure vessel (ASME Section VIII) customers face documentation requirements that paper-based systems cannot sustain. A single aerospace job may require incoming material inspection with CMM verification, in-process weld inspection per AWS D17.1, dimensional inspection at multiple operations, NDE (non-destructive examination) records, welder qualification tracking per AWS D1.1 or D1.6, and a complete data package at shipment that includes mill certs, inspection reports, NDE results, and a certificate of conformance. Each of these documents must be revision-controlled and traceable to the specific job, lot, and serial number. When a quality auditor from your aerospace customer arrives, they do not want to see filing cabinets. They want to see a system that can pull every record for a specific part number within minutes. Shops that cannot produce this documentation risk losing their AS9100 registration or their approved supplier status with their largest customers — which often represent 30-50% of annual revenue.
We were tracking 60 active jobs on a whiteboard and quoting from a spreadsheet that had not been updated with real shop rates in three years. We did not know our actual cost on any job until the accountant closed the books at month-end — and by then it was too late. FreedomDev built us a system where the estimator quotes from actual production data, the shop floor scans jobs through every operation, and I can see every active job's status and margin from my desk. We found out we had been underpricing stainless steel welding by 30% for two years. That one discovery paid for the entire system.
FreedomDev builds quoting systems that connect directly to your actual production cost data. The estimator builds a quote by selecting operations from your shop's routing library — laser cut, brake form, weld, powder coat — and the system populates rates based on actual historical costs for similar operations, not a static rate card. Material costs pull from current pricing in your purchasing system, adjusted for nesting efficiency based on part geometry. When a job completes, the actual costs feed back into the estimating database so future quotes for similar work reflect real numbers. The system handles the complexity that fabrication quoting demands: multiple material types and thicknesses per job, variable lot sizes with quantity break pricing, outside processing costs for services you subcontract (heat treating, plating, anodizing), and markup structures that vary by customer, complexity, or lead time. For shops running 200+ quotes per month, the system tracks win rates by customer, by job type, and by estimator — so you can identify where you are overpricing (losing work) and where you are underpricing (winning unprofitable work).
Learn moreFreedomDev integrates directly with your CNC equipment to capture production data at the source. For fiber lasers and plasma tables from Trumpf, Mazak, AMADA, Bystronic, and Hypertherm, we connect via MTConnect, OPC UA, or the manufacturer's proprietary API to capture machine state (running, idle, alarm, setup), cycle times, pierce counts, and program identifiers. For press brakes and punch presses, we capture stroke counts, setup times, and bend sequences. For machines without network connectivity — older equipment running Fanuc, Siemens, or Haas controllers — we install edge devices that read digital I/O signals to capture basic run/idle/fault states. All data flows into a real-time utilization dashboard: OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) by machine, shift, and operator. Downtime categorized by reason (setup, material wait, maintenance, no operator, tooling change). Actual vs. planned cycle times per job. This data answers the capital expenditure questions your shop faces every year: do you need a second laser, or do you need to reduce the 35% of time your current laser sits idle waiting for material staging?
Learn moreFreedomDev builds the data bridge between your nesting software and your business systems. We integrate with SigmaNEST, ProNest, Trumpf TruTops Boost, Lantek Expert, and other nesting platforms via their APIs or database connections to pull nest layouts, sheet utilization percentages, material requirements, estimated cut times, and scrap projections directly into your job tracking and quoting systems. When the nesting programmer completes a nest, the material consumption data flows into inventory management — deducting the specific sheets used and logging remnant dimensions and locations. The estimated cut time feeds into the production schedule. The actual scrap calculation updates the job cost in real time. On the CNC side, we connect to laser, plasma, and waterjet controllers to capture production feedback: actual cut time vs. programmed time, parts completed per nest, and any alarm events that caused mid-program stoppages. CAD/CAM file formats — DXF, DWG, STEP, IGES, Parasolid — are parsed to extract part geometry for automated quoting and material requirement calculations without manual data entry from the drawing.
Learn moreA job tracking platform built for the routing variability that defines custom fabrication. Each job gets a flexible routing: the system supports standard operation templates for common work (laser-form-weld-coat) and one-off routings built on the fly for custom jobs. Operators scan barcodes or tap tablets at each station to clock in and out of operations, report scrap with reason codes, and flag quality holds. The system tracks every job across every operation in real time — visible on shop floor TV dashboards, office monitors, and mobile devices. Production scheduling uses finite capacity logic that accounts for machine availability, operator certifications (only certified welders assigned to code-quality weld jobs), tooling constraints, and material availability. When a rush order arrives, the scheduler can simulate the impact of inserting it into the queue before committing — seeing exactly which jobs get pushed and which delivery dates are affected. For shops that run outside processing (sending parts to a plating house or heat treater), the system tracks outbound shipments, expected return dates, and flags late returns before they bottleneck downstream operations.
Learn moreFreedomDev builds inventory management systems that handle the specific material tracking challenges fabrication shops face. Sheet and plate stock tracked by material type, alloy, gauge or thickness, sheet size, and rack location — not just by a generic part number. Remnant tracking with dimensions, weight, and location so programmers can assign remnants to new jobs before purchasing buys full sheets. Automated material deduction when nests are cut: the system knows which sheets were consumed, how much usable remnant remains, and where it should be stored. Bar stock and structural shapes tracked by length, with cut-list optimization that minimizes drop waste. For shops serving regulated industries, full material traceability links every part to a mill cert and heat number from receipt through shipment. Purchase order integration with your steel service centers — Metals USA, Ryerson, Steel Technologies, or regional suppliers — enables automated reorder points based on actual consumption rates rather than safety stock guesses. The system tracks material cost variance by job, so you know instantly when actual material consumption exceeds the quoted amount and can investigate before the job ships.
Learn moreFor fabrication shops serving aerospace, defense, nuclear, or pressure vessel customers, FreedomDev builds quality management systems that generate the documentation packages these industries require. Incoming material inspection with CMM or manual measurement data captured digitally and linked to mill certs and purchase orders. In-process inspection records at critical operations — weld inspection per AWS D1.1, D1.6, or D17.1, dimensional verification at forming and machining stations, NDE records (UT, MT, PT, RT) linked to specific welds and part serial numbers. Welder qualification tracking with automatic expiration alerts — every welder's certifications, qualified processes, base materials, and positions documented and searchable. First article inspection reports (FAIR) generated from measured data with automatic comparison to drawing tolerances. At shipment, the system assembles the complete data package — mill certs, inspection reports, NDE records, welder qualifications, certificates of conformance, DFARS compliance documentation — into a single exportable package. This is the documentation your AS9100, ITAR, or ASME auditor expects to see, generated from live data rather than compiled manually from filing cabinets.
Learn more| Metric | FreedomDev | Generic SaaS |
|---|---|---|
| Job Routing Flexibility | Custom routings per job — supports one-off and production work on same platform | Fixed routing templates that require workarounds for non-standard jobs |
| Nesting Software Integration | Direct API integration with SigmaNEST, ProNest, TruTops — material and time data flows automatically | No integration — nesting data manually re-entered into ERP |
| Quoting Accuracy | Estimates built from actual historical job costs with feedback loop | Static rate cards and estimator experience with no cost feedback |
| Material / Remnant Tracking | Sheet-level tracking with remnant dimensions, location, and auto-deduction from nests | Aggregate inventory counts — remnants untracked or manually noted |
| Machine Utilization Data | Real-time OEE via MTConnect/OPC UA from laser, brake, plasma controllers | No machine integration — utilization estimated by foreman |
| Implementation Timeline | Core job tracking and quoting live in 3-5 months | 12-18 month ERP implementation before fabrication-specific customization begins |
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