Purpose-built in Australia for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing
Quote in hours, not days.
Job shops: SAM AI reads the drawings and drafts the takeoff, labour and price. Product manufacturers: configure the product, and the bill of materials, routing and price follow. Either way, your estimator reviews and sends, and every quote is checked against real capacity.
In their words
What Australian manufacturers report
Customer-reported results from Australian manufacturing businesses. Outcomes vary by shop.
Lead times from eight weeks to two.
Specialised Tyre and Wheel
Read the story
Real-time scheduling across multiple sites and close to 1,000 operators.
Schlam Payload
Read the story
About $200,000 a year saved. Workshop capacity doubled.
MetalWest
Read the story
90 minutes improved utilisation per operator. Ask us about the measurement and conditions for your operation. This is Smart Shop Floor's utilisation claim, not a result attributed to the customers above.
All customer stories
Humans approve what matters
Your team makes the calls
- Nothing is released to the floor until your scheduler approves it.
- Quotes and customer documents go out only after your team signs off.
- Every change is logged. Your team can see what was proposed, by whom, and why.
SAM prepares drafts and notifies your team. Your team reviews customer quotes and subcontract choices, with oversight of production planning. How SAM works
See approvals in practice: R. Moore and Sons and Klinger.
Human Approval Gate · Illustrative workflow
The Inbox Chaos
RFQs, drawings and change requests land in email, waiting to be re-keyed.
Drafting and scheduling
SAM reads the email, extracts the job, drafts the quote and proposes a schedule.
Human Approval Gate
Your team reviews and approves. Nothing is released to the floor until you do.
Software prepares the work. Your team approves the release.
Data and security
Your data stays in Australia
Hosted and backed up in Australian data centres. ISO 27001 certified for information security, ISO 9001 for quality, DISP registered for defence supply chains. Each manufacturer's data sits in its own tenant and is used only to run that manufacturer's operation.
- Australian data centres, accessible using VPN
- ISO 27001 · ISO 9001 · DISP
- One tenant per manufacturer
How it works
One job, five steps, with your team at every gate.
From the first quote to the customer checking their order, Smart Shop Floor runs it in one place, so nothing falls through the gaps between spreadsheets.
- Schedule is built around real capacity
- RFQ arrives, SAM AI drafts the quote against that capacity
- Estimator approves
- Job drops into the schedule
- Scheduler releases to floor
Step 01 of 05 · Illustrative example
Capture the RFQ, drawings and job requirements.
SAM reads incoming requests for quotation (RFQs) and attached drawings. Your estimator reviews the manufacturing scope before preparing the estimate.
Step 02 of 05 · Illustrative example
Cost the job and prepare the customer quote.
SAM prepares material takeoffs, labour estimates and subcontract RFQs, using supplier prices and lead times. SAM automatically emails the estimator when ready. Your estimator reviews the costing and sends the quote; customer approval releases the job for production planning.
Step 03 of 05 · Illustrative example
Schedule operations against available capacity.
Approved job costs and subcontract lead times carry into finite-capacity scheduling. Sequence operations around machine capacity, labour and delivery dates, then allocate work to work centres and operators. Production supervisors oversee the schedule.
Step 04 of 05 · Illustrative example
Execute operations and track work in progress.
Factory operators access assigned jobs through the shop-floor modules, manufacture or fabricate components, record operation progress and complete quality checks. Supervisors monitor work in progress and respond to production issues.
Step 05 of 05 · Illustrative example
Dispatch finished goods and trigger invoicing.
Once the job is fully dispatched, Smart Shop Floor triggers invoice creation in your ERP, MYOB or Xero—not on a partial shipment. Your team sends it to the customer and manages payment through your accounting process.
Software Platform
Four tools, one system
From the first quote to the customer checking their order, Smart Shop Floor runs it in one place, so nothing falls through the gaps between spreadsheets.
One minute
Smart Shop Floor overview
See quoting, scheduling and the shop floor working from the same job.
The software behind the drafts
What SAM AI does, and what it doesn't
Across estimating, production and customer service, SAM prepares the next action for your team to review.
Does
- Reads drawings and emails
- Drafts quotes
- Proposes schedules
- Flags material shortages
- Keeps customers updated
Doesn't, without someone on your team approving it
- Release work to the floor
- Send a quote
- Change a price
- Contact a customer
SAM Estimator
Take-off, BoM, labour and draft pricing from your shop's own history.
SAM Sales Admin
Draft quotes, RFQs, purchase orders and invoices, ready for review.
SAM Scheduler
Real capacity plus approved subcontractor lead times into a plan.
SAM Knowledge Worker helps your team find and use information across your drawings, quotes, jobs and procedures.How SAM works
Built for high-mix, low-volume manufacturing
Different jobs. Every day.
Standard ERPs assume you make the same product every day. We know you don't. Smart Shop Floor is designed specifically for the chaos of High-Mix, Low-Volume job shops. SAM AI estimates custom geometries in seconds, and our dynamic scheduler instantly adapts when your priorities change.
Engineered specifically for:
- High-Mix, Low-Volume (HMLV)
- Discrete Manufacturing
- Machining & CNC Job Shops
- Structural Steel Fabrication
Sound familiar?
Most shops accept these as normal.
Your accounting or ERP handles the money. The gaps sit between the enquiry and the shop floor.
01Quotes go out too slowly to win
Drawings, take-offs and subcontract pricing live in different places, so a straightforward enquiry waits on one busy estimator.
02Two estimators, two prices
Without shared history, rates and assumptions drift. Nobody checks estimates against what the job actually cost.
03Late jobs surface when the customer rings
Schedules live on whiteboards and in heads. Production managers lose time answering status questions instead of running the floor.
04Skilled people stuck re-keying data
Quotes, POs, travellers and invoices get typed twice between the office, the floor and the accounting system.
Smart Shop Floor · smartshopfloor.com
Your quoting and operations scenarios
Run your own numbers
What could faster quoting and better utilisation unlock?
Explore potential new business and additional workforce capacity using your own assumptions.
Fits how you already run
Keep your systems. Keep your team in control.
Built for Xero-led workshops and for ERP-led manufacturers with enterprise expectations.
Your accounting or ERP stays
XeroNetSuiteMYOB ExoSAP Business OneStrumisSYSPROEpicorsimPROWork standalone or connect your existing tools. Available data flows and approval steps depend on the integration.
Integrations
See how it would run in your shop
A 30-minute diagnostic with someone who has done this in twenty Australian workshops. We look at your quoting and scheduling, and tell you plainly what would change and what wouldn't.
Book a demo