Every module, explained.

Workhorse ERP opens on a top-down map of your building: floors, rooms, doors, stairs, racks, tables, pallets, cabinets and every CNC machine. The map is the home screen, so the first thing anyone sees is the state of the floor.

Every storage spot has an address in the form facility / spot / shelf / position. CS/R2/S1/L reads as rack 2, shelf 1, left. Search a part number, work order or PO and its exact shelf lights up. Hover a machine to see what it is running; click it to open the traveler.

Every operation is placed on a specific machine using its estimated cycle time, the shift hours you run, the operators available and planned downtime. The schedule then checks each job against the date the customer needs it.

There are two views because two groups of people need them. The machine schedule shows load by spindle for the production manager and engineers. The part schedule shows each job across its whole traveler, including outside processing, so sales can give a lead time they can keep.

Each work order carries a live traveler built from the part’s approved routing. It lists every operation, the work center, outside processes and inspection steps in order, and it is created automatically when the order is released.

Operators record good and scrap quantities and sign off each step as the job moves. The traveler always knows where the parts are, which heat of material they came from and whether first article and in-process checks passed.

Operators update their machine from a tablet mounted next to it: running, setup, waiting on QC, waiting on material or down. Parts are counted as they finish, and every change is timestamped.

That history becomes a daily timeline of run, setup and idle hours for each machine, with measured cycle times compared against the quote. If no part is reported for more than twice the cycle time, the machine drops to Break on its own, so the board never shows a stopped machine as running.

Material and tools are reserved against an operation before it can be scheduled, and the system checks that a fixture is available and the program is released. If anything is missing, the operation stays off the machine schedule until it is resolved or overridden with a logged reason.

Assemblies are built by dragging component pictures into a visual tree that shows, for every part, what is in stock, in work, at a vendor or short. Castings, forgings and extrusions are tracked by die or mold serial, weight per unit and cut length.

Each tool record holds its cutting data by material and the parts it runs on. Holders, cutters and inserts are tracked by drawer and pocket, reserved to jobs, and flagged before the shelf runs out.

Adding a tool is quick: paste a supplier catalog page and the EDP number, geometry, coating and price fill in for review. Face mills link to their inserts, and drawers are mapped and color-coded by material.

Engineers build an in-process inspection form for each part straight from the ballooned drawing: feature, gauge, minimum, target and maximum. Operators enter measurements during the run and each feature is judged the moment it is typed.

When a dimension is drifting toward a limit, the operator gets the offset correction while the part is still good. Composite checks such as true position are calculated from the raw readings, so nobody works GD&T out by hand at the machine.

A failed inspection opens a nonconformance report on the spot, with the job, operation and measurements already filled in. The affected parts are quarantined so they cannot move to the next operation or ship.

The material review board records its disposition and signs it. Corrective action then runs through containment, root cause, action and an effectiveness check, each step dated and owned by a named person.

Every gauge has a calibration interval and its certificate on file. Inspection records name the gauge that took each measurement, so the link between instrument and part is never lost.

Quality is warned 30 days before a gauge comes due. Once a gauge is overdue it cannot be selected on an inspection run. If a gauge fails calibration, the system lists every part it measured since its last good calibration.

Drawings, CNC programs and procedures are released through an approval chain. Engineering and quality sign electronically before a revision goes live, and superseded revisions lock so travelers and tablets only open the released one.

A new revision triggers its first article inspection. AS9102 forms 1, 2 and 3 are filled from the traveler, material certifications and inspection results, ready to send with the first shipment.

Serial numbers are assigned on the traveler and carry their full genealogy: the heat lot of the material, each operation and who performed it, the inspection results and the shipment it left on.

When a question comes back from the field, you can go from any heat lot, operator or gauge to every serial it touched, or from a single serial back to the bar it was cut from.

Material is bought from approved suppliers on tracked purchase orders. When it arrives it is received with its heat and lot number and its mill test report, stored at an address on the map and allocated to the work orders that will use it.

The purchaser has a page of their own showing what needs to be bought, what is on order and what has arrived. Traceability works in both directions: from a shipped part back to its heat lot, or from a lot forward to every part made from it.

Every quote is costed operation by operation, using the same routing that later becomes the shop traveler, so the price matches the process. Material, in-house operations and outside processing are costed separately, with price breaks by quantity.

Several parts can go on one quote. You type overhead, profit margin and down payment as percentages and watch the numbers update live. Programming and fixturing are shown as a one-time line rather than buried in the piece price, and every printed quote notes that tooling and material prices are subject to surge pricing.

Customer purchase orders that arrive by email are read automatically. The PO number, part, revision, quantity, price and due date are pulled from the PDF and matched to the quote they reference.

Any difference, such as a different revision or price, is flagged and the work order is held until it is resolved with the buyer. Once confirmed, the order, work order, shipment and invoice stay linked as one record.

When an order ships, the packing slip, certificate of conformance and invoice are generated from the same job record. There is no retyping and no chance of mismatched numbers between the documents.

The ship quantity comes from the last completed operation on the traveler. Heat and lot numbers and supplier certifications carry onto the certificate of conformance, and partial shipments each get their own documents.

Invoices are created from the shipment and reference the customer’s PO line exactly, which makes them easy for an accounts payable team to match and approve.

Invoices are emailed to the AP contact on file with the packing slip and certificate attached, and reminders go out near the due date. Payment terms, including down payments set at quoting, carry through. Invoices and payments export to your accounting system.

Actual labor comes straight from the machine tablets, so nobody fills in a time sheet per job. Material, outside processing and overhead roll up per work order and land next to the original quote.

You see exactly where a job ran over: setup, cycle time, material or a vendor. Those actuals feed into the next quote for the same part, so prices improve with every order.

Each customer and supplier has a record with contacts, terms and the documents that govern the work: NDAs, quality flow-downs, certifications, W-9s and tax certificates, each with an expiry date that is tracked.

The system applies what is on file. An approved tax exemption zeroes tax on invoices, and vendors must be reviewed and approved before they can be used on a job.

Raw material, work in process and finished parts are tracked by quantity and location. Each item records where it sits on the facility map and which work order it belongs to, including parts at an outside vendor.

Every box gets a printed label with part, revision, quantity, PO and lot, and every shelf position carries its own barcode so parts can be put away and found with a scan.

Shifts, timesheets, time off and team tasks live next to the jobs they affect, so the schedule always knows who is available. You can run several shifts a day, assign people to a shift or give anyone custom working hours.

Paid time off is kept in hours for hourly and salaried staff, granted up front or accrued per person. Tasks can be linked to a work order and operation and dragged across the week.

The full system runs on a phone with nothing to install. The camera reads location codes, tool numbers and part tags straight into any field, with photo and manual entry as fallbacks.

Office PCs, machine tablets, phones and shop TVs all show the same live record. Floor screens stay signed in for the whole shift, while office users always sign in with a password.

Only signed-in company users can open the system, and a password is always required. An admin decides, feature by feature, who can see pricing, drawings, customer records and admin settings. Shop tablets lock automatically when idle.

Every change is recorded: who changed what, when, and the value before and after. Overrides such as releasing an unreserved job require a reason, and approvals carry an electronic signature.

Every record lives in a PostgreSQL database with automated backups and point-in-time restore. The whole team works at once from any device, with nothing installed on the shop’s computers.

Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access can be limited to your shop’s network, and the platform is designed for need-to-know control and full logging of technical data for ITAR-regulated work.