Made in the USA

Job Shop Consulting for On-Time Delivery, Scheduling, and ERP Reality

Stop chasing every problem. Align your team to what matters: time and capacity—not just booked dollars.

If your shop is busy but shipments don’t rise, the answer usually isn’t “work harder.” It’s release, priorities, and data that doesn’t match the floor.

We help job shops stabilize the whole flow — from marketing and quoting through order entry and engineering, all the way to shipping:

Marketingsalesquotingfollow-uporder entrysheet metal engineering + CAD automation (SolidWorks)releasequeuesetuprunmoveinspectionship

We do it by making inputs consistent and decisions rules-based, so schedules hold up and teams stop relying on gut.

Free. No charge. Find a starting point fast. Check your email for next steps.

Not sure where to start?

Free Throughput Audit (Quiz)

Start free and get direction fast.

Find the Bottleneck (Root Cause)

Deeper intake when the pain is obvious.

ERP Customization / Add-ons

Fix the inputs: routings, statuses, exports.

General Contact

Unsure? Send a note and we’ll route you.

Book a Discovery Call

Talk through your constraint + data readiness in 20 minutes.

Why we offer a free audit

Most shops run on booked dollars because it’s easy to track. But delivery is governed by capacity in hours. The fastest way to get clarity is to compare what you thought jobs would take vs what they actually took—and to see where the schedule breaks before it becomes a fire drill.

Outcomes (safe, non-guarantee)

  • fewer expedites and priority fights
  • steadier lead times and better on-time delivery
  • lower WIP without reducing shipments
  • more trustworthy quoting as estimate vs actual improves over time

How shops typically improve (in the order that works)

  1. Free clarity: Find a starting point fast (no charge).
  2. Confirm reality: Does the data match your gut?
  3. Daily signal: Install hours scheduled vs hours completed so decisions stabilize.
  4. Readiness: Make the minimum inputs consistent (sequence, workcenters, statuses).
  5. Data prep: Build the feedback loop (estimate vs actual + exceptions).
  6. Scheduling that holds up: Forward/backward logic with rules—not gut—so you can warn customers early and control new work entering the shop.

Prefer a deeper intake? Find the Root Cause → /root-cause

Trust (no hype)

No black boxes. No lock-in. You control the source code and decision logic we create.
Not a rip-and-replace ERP project.
AI doesn’t work without clean, correctly sequenced data—so we start by making inputs trustworthy.

Next step

  • Measure total throughput
    • What was truly finished vs still sitting as WIP?
  • Find the constraint
    • Which workcenter/department most often governs shipments?
    • Where do jobs pile up right before they can’t move?
    • This can also be a lack of new orders.
  • Protect and manage the constraint
    • Keep it fed with the right jobs (release control — work first on items that can ship)
    • Reduce interruptions (expedites, missing material, rework surprises)
    • Track hours scheduled vs hours completed at that point
  • Watch the system response
    • As the constraint stabilizes, check whether:
      • Total shipments increase
      • Lead times stabilize
      • WIP comes down without reducing shipments
  • Repeat
    • When the constraint moves, re-check where the new limiting step is.
    • Improve one step at a time, in sequence.

Our team can help at any step of the way.
Use our simple constraint locator (Free Throughput Audit) or send your top challenges and we’ll reply with thoughts on the root cause.

Free Throughput Audit → /discovery
Root Cause intake → /root-cause

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© 3D CAD Consultant. Made in the USA.
Constraint consulting • Throughput audits • Embedded advisory