Case Study · Manufacturing 10 weeks Perth, WA

Production Dashboard for a Metal Fabricator

Live production tracking with job costing, scheduling and quality management. Replaced whiteboards and spreadsheets with real-time visibility across the factory floor.

Custom Software Development
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Client Context

Custom metal fabrication: structural, architectural and mining components

A Perth-based metal fabrication company with 45 staff producing structural steel, architectural metalwork and mining components. They ran 80–100 active jobs at any time across cutting, welding, machining, finishing and assembly.

Production scheduling lived on a whiteboard in the workshop. Job costing was done retrospectively in Excel after jobs were completed. The production manager walked the floor multiple times a day to check on job progress. There was no other way to know where things stood.

The Challenge

What needed to change

Job scheduling was reactive. The whiteboard showed the plan for the week, but it was not updated when things changed. Delays in one job cascaded into others. Customer delivery promises were made without knowing current shop floor capacity.

Job costing was retrospective and inaccurate. Actual labour, material and consumable costs were tallied after the job was completed, sometimes weeks later. By then, it was too late to make adjustments. The company estimated they were underquoting 30% of jobs.

Quality issues were caught late. Inspection points existed on paper but were not consistently followed. Defects discovered at final assembly required rework that was expensive and delayed delivery. No systematic way to track quality trends.

The Solution

What we built

A production dashboard with real-time job tracking, costing, scheduling, quality checkpoints and factory floor visibility, accessible on workshop screens and mobile devices.

Job Tracking

Every job tracked through production stages: cutting, welding, machining, finishing, assembly. Workers clock on/off each stage via tablet. Status updates in real time on the dashboard.

Live Costing

Labour hours, materials, consumables and subcontractor costs accumulate against each job in real time. Actual vs. quoted comparison visible at any point, not just after completion.

Production Scheduling

Drag-and-drop scheduling across work centres and staff. Capacity view shows bottlenecks before they happen. Delivery date commitments based on actual available capacity.

Quality Management

Mandatory quality checkpoints at each production stage. Photo documentation of key hold points. Non-conformance reports linked to jobs with corrective action tracking.

Built with:
ReactTypeScriptNode.jsPostgreSQLWebSocketXero APIAWS
In Practice

How it works

1

Job enters production

Once engineering releases the job, it appears on the production schedule with routing, material requirements and quality hold points. Materials are allocated from stock.

2

Workers clock onto stages

At each work centre (cutting, welding, etc.), workers tap their staff card and select the job. Timer starts. Materials and consumables are scanned against the job as used.

3

Dashboard updates in real time

Production manager sees all active jobs: current stage, time spent, cost accumulated, next milestone. Workshop screens show the day's priorities for each work centre.

4

Quality checkpoints completed

At defined hold points, workers complete the quality checklist and capture photos. Jobs cannot progress to the next stage until the checkpoint is approved.

5

Job completes with full cost picture

When the job finishes, the full cost breakdown is available immediately: labour by stage, materials, consumables, quality hold times, rework (if any). Actual vs. quoted margins visible.

Results

Measurable outcomes

20% Improvement in on-time delivery
15% More accurate job costing
Real-time Production visibility (was end-of-day at best)
40% Reduction in rework due to quality checkpoints
80+ jobs Tracked simultaneously across the floor
30% Reduction in underquoted jobs

I used to walk the floor 5 times a day to work out where jobs were up to. Now I look at the screen and see everything, every job, every stage, every cost. We finally know which jobs make money and which do not.

Production Manager Metal Fabrication Company
Delivery

How we delivered it

1

Factory Floor Study

2 weeks

Spent 2 weeks on the factory floor. Observed production workflows, job handoffs, scheduling methods and quality processes. Interviewed operators, supervisors and the production manager. Documented actual vs. intended workflows.

2

Dashboard & Tracking

4 weeks

Built the production dashboard, job tracking system and worker clocking interface. Installed tablets at work centres. Configured WebSocket real-time updates for the dashboard screens.

3

Costing & Quality

2 weeks

Built the real-time costing engine linking labour, materials and consumables to jobs. Configured quality checkpoints, inspection forms and non-conformance reporting.

4

Rollout & Training

2 weeks

Piloted with 2 work centres for 2 weeks. Trained team leaders and operators on the tablet interface. Refined the clocking workflow based on floor feedback. Rolled out factory-wide.

Meet the person

The person behind the work

Your project, handled by the founder from start to end.

HELLO PEOPLE designs, builds and looks after AI, software, app and data solutions for Australian businesses, with senior expertise on every project and a scope agreed before work starts. For software, that means starting with how your business runs, not with the code.

Since 2007, HELLO PEOPLE has delivered more than 100 projects from Perth for small and medium businesses across Australia: custom software and apps, system integrations, data migrations, reporting and dashboards, and AI that works inside the systems a business already runs.

I lead every engagement myself. I trained in accounting before moving into IT, hold accounting and IT professional qualifications and an MBA, and bring more than 20 years of experience across sales, service delivery, inventory and compliance. I am also a PhD candidate in AI at Curtin University, researching retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), so the technology is always judged by what it does for the business.

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    The first release is the start, not the end. When you need the next system, integration or report, you call the same person, who already knows your business.

Similar Project?

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