FABRICATED METALS

From RFQ to shipped part on one record

A fabrication job touches every part of the shop before it ships: the estimate, the material buy, the cut plan, forming, welding, finishing, inspection and the invoice. When each of those lives in its own spreadsheet or system, the job's real cost only shows up after the fact.

Visibility ERP keeps the whole sequence on the record that quoted the job. An RFQ becomes a quote built from real material, labor and subcontract costs, and the quote becomes a sales order without rekeying. Order entry hands the job to engineering, where BOMs and routings carry revisions and engineering change orders without breaking work already released to the floor. Material planning nets sheet, plate, bar and purchased components against demand, with kanban support for the items you replenish rather than plan. Schedule Advisor compares planned production to real work center capacity, so the delivery date you commit is one the floor can actually hit.

As the job runs, shop floor data collection captures labor, quantities and scrap at each operation, in whatever unit the material is measured, pieces, pounds or feet, with user-defined reason codes classifying the cause. Work-in-process cost stays live rather than reconstructed at month end, and project accounting rolls it up into margin you can see by job and by customer.

Quality and traceability without a side system

Fabricators win work with certifications and keep it with paper trails. Quality management in Visibility ERP is part of shop floor control, not a bolt-on: routings are revision controlled and process oriented, inspection data is collected at the operation, and corrective actions close the loop back to the process that produced the issue. That structure supports ISO compliance programs and the customer-specific quality requirements that flow down from aerospace, defense and medical work.

Lot traceability connects raw material receipts to the jobs and shipments that consumed them. When a customer asks what material went into a shipment, the answer is a query, not an archaeology project.

Common questions from metal fabricators

What does ERP software do for a metal fabrication shop?

It replaces the separate quoting spreadsheet, job tracking board, inventory list and accounting file with one system. In Visibility ERP the quote, sales order, BOM, routing, schedule, shop floor data and invoice are one record, so pricing reflects real costs and delivery dates reflect real capacity.

How does Visibility ERP handle quoting and estimating?

Quotes are built from the same material, labor and subcontract cost data the rest of the system runs on, and historical costs from similar jobs are a query away. When the customer says yes, the quote is not copied into an order; it is the same record with its status advanced, so nothing is rekeyed, and the estimate becomes the baseline the actual job cost is measured against.

Can it schedule around subcontract operations like plating or heat treat?

Yes. Routings carry subcontracted operations alongside internal work centers, so outside processing time is part of the promise date rather than a surprise after it. Schedule Advisor shows the load graphically, and planners drag work to alternate dates or work centers when reality changes.

How long does a Visibility ERP implementation take?

A typical implementation runs four to six months, delivered by our own implementation team rather than a third party. We have implemented the system in house since 1988 without a failed implementation.

Does Visibility ERP run in the cloud?

Either way you prefer. Run it in the cloud as SaaS with our team managing hosting, upgrades and backups, or on premise on your own infrastructure. It is the same browser-based system in both cases.