The Problems Every High-Mix Shop Knows
If you're running a custom shop, you'll recognize most of these - every one links to the full story:
You're guessing your margins
Which jobs made money last quarter? If the answer takes three systems and a spreadsheet, the data was never captured - setup time, rework, machine hours all vanish into "overhead".
You can't improve whatyou can't see ￫
"Did the Anderson job make money?" should be the easiest question in the building - instead, someone opens the quoting spreadsheet, someone checks invoices, and three days later you get a number nobody fully trusts. The data isn't buried; it was never captured.
One system where every stage carries a number - materials, labor, setup, rework - turns that question into a glance. And then the interesting part starts: which product types eat double the quoted setup time, which customers' "small changes" erase the margin on every order.
Your team uses half the ERP
Quoting went back to spreadsheets, scheduling to the whiteboard. That's not resistance to change - it's software built for a factory that runs the same widget all day.
Why generic ERP failshigh-mix shops ￫
Nobody went back to spreadsheets because they love spreadsheets - they went back because the ERP couldn't handle a day where three jobs change priority before lunch.
"Fully configurable" turns out to mean visual tweaks while the workflow stays theirs: full of required steps you don't need, missing the ones you do.
Handing mass-production software to a custom manufacturer is handing a tailor a cookie cutter. Software that fits starts from how you actually quote, schedule, and produce - and builds around that.
The operation runs on people's memory
Pricing logic, setup rules, customer exceptions - years of know-how with no policy, no backup, no redundancy. You can't insure it. You can encode it.
Knowledge that stayswhen people don't ￫
Your most profitable products are quoted from a spreadsheet nobody else dares to touch - pricing logic, setup rules, customer exceptions, built over years and sitting in three people's heads. When one of them retires or leaves, the thing that held the operation together goes too, and no training binder brings it back.
Encoding does: pricing logic into the quoting tool, your best operator's setup as the default. New hires get productive in days - and the knowledge stays even when the person doesn't.
Three systems, three different answers
Your ERP says one thing, the floor says another, accounts a third. And more integrations won't fix it - connecting incomplete views doesn't create a complete one.
The single source of truthproperly built ￫
Every workaround was built for a real problem at a real moment - and each one added another gap between what's happening and what you can see.
The instinctive fix, connecting the tools you have, disappoints: five incomplete views don't add up to a complete one, and every integration is one more seam where versions drift.
One system, data entered once, the same answer for everyone. Your workarounds weren't wrong - they deserved to be built properly.
Errors surface at the part, not the desk
Wrong BOM in a signed contract. Wrong revision on the floor. Stock allocated twice. More checklists won't fix what the system makes easy to get wrong.
Prevent mistakes instead ofcatching them ￫
What did your last BOM mistake actually cost - the rework, the customer call, the delivery slip, the quote you didn't win afterward? As long as the operation runs on manual entry, errors aren't a question of if - only when, and how much. More checklists won't help: manual processes get more fragile under pressure, not less.
The fix is structural - data entered once, BOMs that can't be saved incomplete, drawings that can't reach the floor without the right revision, stock that can't be allocated twice.
The old system is failing, but switching feels riskier
It isn't - you've been writing the new system's spec for years, in workarounds and sticky notes. And the migration risk can be capped in the contract.
Your old system is the spec ￫Every workaround, complaint, and sticky note is the specification for the system that replaces the old one - your team has been writing it for years. The fears are fair: lost data, a broken migration, a team that revolts.
Each has a mechanism: migrations scripted and rehearsed before the real go-live, phased transitions with old and new systems synchronized, and a contract that caps the downside. The real risk is another year of workarounds multiplying - and the people who hold it all together moving on.
The deal, in one paragraph
Fixed price with flexible scope - if a change doesn't increase complexity, the price doesn't move.
You pay for business value, not hours. First testable version in 2–3 weeks from contract signature.
Two weeks of testing at the end, with a walkaway option at any time if it's not right.
Full refund if we miss the agreed specification. Free bug fixing forever.
And you own the source code and IP outright.
Solutions
One system, built module by module
We don't sell a suite and ask you to
configure it.
We build the modules your operation needs:
around your
products, your routing, your rules
and they share one source of truth from day
one.
Start where it hurts most:
Quoting & BOM calculator
Precise quotes in minutes
not hours
A few clicks produce a precise price - product logic generates the right BOM for the variations you actually sell. Quotes in minutes; new staff quoting on day one.
Every quote gets rebuilt from scratch - specs from emails, costs from supplier history, pricing rules from your estimator's memory - and half of them never become orders.
A tool that knows your products changes the economics: a few clicks generate the right BOM and a precise price, new staff quote confidently on day one, and the response lands fast enough to win the jobs you should win. Not a 10% improvement - a different way of working.
Design files management
The wrong drawing never reaches the floor
One click opens the definitive latest drawing straight in CAD; every version logged against its job. The wrong revision never reaches the floor again.
"final_v4_FINAL_fixed.dwg" just went to the floor - you hope it's the right one. You don't lose that bet on the screen; you lose it at the part, after the material and machine time are already spent.
Instead: one click opens the definitive latest revision straight in CAD, and every save is logged against its job. Plus a full audit trail, and a number nobody has today - how long design actually takes per order.
Machine scheduling
Same machines, same team, more throughput
An algorithm tests thousands of job sequences and proposes the one with the least changeover time - your scheduler reviews and approves. In one plant: downtime down 10–20%.
An injection molding owner asked for "a tool to make planning easier" - he was picturing a digital whiteboard.
We built an algorithm that plans for him instead: it tests thousands of job sequences to minimize changeovers, with full manual override - control stays with the operator. Weekly planning went from hours to minutes, and downtime fell 10–20%. And anyone on the team can answer whether a rush order fits this week - in seconds, during the call.
Stock allocation
"In stock" isn't "available"
"In stock" isn't "available." See what's here, what's reserved, what's on the way - on a timeline - so material can't be committed twice.
The shelf says 150 - but 120 is reserved for confirmed orders, 50 arrives next week, and the rush job you just took needs 60. Can you start?
Availability is three numbers on a timeline: what's here, what's committed, what's on the way. Confirm an order and its material reserves itself; take a rush job and see instantly whether it fits. And purchasing learns about shortfalls the moment an order creates one - not when the floor stops.
Customer portal
No more email archaeology
Specs, approvals, revisions, and live order status in one shared view. No more email archaeology - and no more "where is my order?" calls.
Every custom order generates dozens of communications spread across inboxes, drives, and memory - and when the customer says "that's not what we agreed," the proof is three days of email archaeology away.
A portal gives both sides one shared view: specs, revisions, approvals, live order status, invoices. Questions answer themselves before they're asked, disputes end in one click with a timestamped record, and nothing goes missing when someone's on holiday.
Supplier portal
No retyping, no chasing, both sides
POs sent automatically, confirmed with a click, delays flagged the moment they're known. Your availability numbers become real.
You typed the order into your system, then into an email, and your supplier typed it into theirs - same data, three places, two chances to get it wrong. Then the confirmation hides in a thirty-reply thread while production waits for a straight answer about Thursday.
The portal replaces the loop: POs sent automatically, confirmed with a click, delays flagged the moment they're known. Your suppliers will prefer it - it deletes work from both sides - and your "on the way" numbers finally become real.
But best solutions require consistent quality on every level, so we:
- don't fix or build on top of other's code
- don't customize off-the-shelf or no-code solutions
Proof from the floor:
Read the case study
For SAMEX, a cutting-equipment manufacturer selling to 65 countries, we unified quoting, purchasing, production planning, and warehouse into one system: 30% fewer production delays, 40% better component visibility, 50% faster core processes.
Read the case study
One of our platforms is running since 2012 (14+ years) without a major rework, growing to three times its original size. Your system should be an asset that compounds - not a project that repeats.
Hear it in the questions we ask
Solarte's founder earned a CNC machine technician diploma - hands-on, in the metalwork shop. That's why our systems speak shop floor, not just SQL.
Start with numbers, not a sales pitch
The Operations Efficiency Map
We walk
your full order lifecycle - ten stages, from enquiry to delivery - and for each
relevant stage we calculate together
what better software would actually save you:
quoting hours, changeover time, error costs, chasing, re-keying.
You leave with concrete figures for your own operation, whether we ever work together or not.
It costs nothing but an hour of your time.