Material overconsumed and never charged
It was quoted at 1.2 kg per part and 1.45 was used. Over 800 parts that's 200 kg of steel that came out of the order's margin. The system compares theoretical against real per order.
Systems · Machining shops
Every order, every part and every kilo of material, per lathe.
A system for a machining shop floor: which order runs on each lathe, how many good parts so far, how much material was consumed against what it should have, and how much scrap came out and what it cost. The owner knows whether the order makes money before invoicing it.
Shop · orders on the floor09:15 · Lost to scrap today $2,292
Lathe T2OT-2219 · Eje 1045 Ø25×180
Progress37% · Finishes 20:32
Good / Scrap92 / 4
Material · theoretical 300 kg · real 138.2 kg (+20%)
Lost to scrap today$396
Live simulation · sample data
You know whether the order makes money before you invoice it.
Click a lathe to see its order and material. Scrap gets valued automatically.
- Floor order board: each lathe with its order, drawing, progress and estimated finish time.
- Material per order: bar or plate assigned, theoretical consumption per part and real consumption at close. The difference comes out with a name.
- Scrap per part, per cause and per operator, valued at material cost plus machine time.
- Real order cost against the quoted cost, on completion. The next quote comes out with data.
Where the money goes today
What a shop loses between the quote and the invoice
Scrap and rework cost a median 5.0% of cost of sales across a sample of 4,230 manufacturing companies. In a shop selling $2 million pesos a month at 70% cost, that's $70,000 a month leaving as chips and repeated parts.
Rework charged as production
The part that comes back, gets fixed and ships as good consumed machine time twice. That time is charged to normal production today. The system separates it.
Quotes that repeat the last mistake
Without the real cost of the previous order, the next one is quoted the same. The system keeps real time, material and scrap per part for next time.
What the system controls
Works with tablet entry at each lathe, or reading the CNC's counter when it has one.
- Work orders and their drawing
- Order assignment per lathe
- Good parts per hour and per operator
- Scrap per cause, valued
- Material assigned, theoretical and real
- Cycle time and setup time
- Tooling: life and changes
- Real against quoted cost per order
- Estimated finish date per order
- History per part for the next quote
How it's done today, and how it ends up
Three moments in an ordinary shop.
Today
The owner walks to the lathe, asks the operator, works it out in their head and answers on WhatsApp. Off by a day, often.
With the system
The board shows the order's real progress and the estimated finish time, calculated from the pace of the last few hours. The owner answers from wherever they are.
What you get
A date that holds, and the walk to the lathe.
Operation example
A shop with six CNC lathes, two machining centers and an owner who quotes everything
This is how the system looks in a shop this size: one tablet per machine for parts and scrap, the CNC counter where there is one, an order board at the shop entrance and the real cost of each order on the owner's phone the day it finishes.
Get a quote for one like this8machines with order, progress and estimated finish
5%material deviation triggers the alert
6 semfrom the first meeting to the order board in operation
3previous orders in view when quoting a part
Decision manual
Questions worth answering before automating
Scope, return, data, integrations and infrastructure, with concrete answers and visible boundaries.
Q/01What software do machining shops use to control production?
A work-order system that assigns each order to a machine, counts good parts and scrap, tracks material consumed and produces the real cost on completion. Big ERPs include it as an expensive, generic module; Aikanta's system does only that, with entry on a tablet next to the lathe.
Q/02Do operators have to type a lot?
Three taps per event: good part, scrap with its cause, or stoppage. When the CNC has a counter, not even that: parts are read automatically and the operator only marks scrap. The screen is designed for gloved, oily hands.
Q/03How does it calculate theoretical material per part?
From the drawing and the bar or plate type: cut length plus saw kerf, times the number of parts. You enter it once per part and the system compares it against the material actually assigned to each order.
Q/04Does it connect to my quoting or invoicing system?
Yes. It takes the order from your quoting system if you have one, and on completion sends the real cost and delivered parts to invoicing. If you quote in Excel, the system gives you the template with the part's real data.
Q/05What does it cost and how fast does it pay back?
It's quoted per machine, with a four-to-eight machine start in about six weeks. The number it's compared against comes from the diagnosis: overconsumed material and valued scrap over the last quarter. In shops with six or more machines, that number usually pays for the system in under a year.
Find the process costing you the most margin
Tell us where work repeats, where information gets lost and which metric moves the business. We'll tell you what to measure first and whether automation makes sense.
First review at no cost. We answer within one business day.