
Manufacturing · In testing
A welding & machining shop
One record from the first request to the final job cost. The shop lead works from a tablet, and quoted versus actual updates as the work happens.
Estimating, work orders, materials, quality packages and production visibility in one custom system — built around your process, integrated with the ERP and accounting you keep, and you can own it outright.
Manufacturing software for a job shop or fabricator runs the office side of production: estimating, work orders, job travellers, materials and quality records in one system. AltaMatic builds custom manufacturing software around how your shop already quotes and schedules work, integrated with the accounting and ERP systems you keep.
In most fabrication and custom manufacturing businesses the decisions that actually set margin — how a job was estimated, where it really is, what material is committed, which revision the floor is working to — happen outside the system of record. Here is where that costs.
Pricing a custom part or a fabricated assembly depends on judgement held by one or two estimators and a spreadsheet only they fully trust. Quoting capacity is capped by their availability, and consistency varies with who priced it.
A work order leaves the office as a printed packet and its real status lives on the shop floor. Knowing what stage a job is at means walking out to look, or asking someone who was there.
What has been ordered, what has arrived, and what is committed to which job are tracked in separate places. Shortages surface when a job is already staged rather than when there was still time to act.
Mill certs, inspection records, weld maps and test results are scanned into folders. Producing a complete package for a customer or an audit is a manual assembly job every time.
A drawing or specification changes and the current version does not reliably reach everyone working to it. Rework from a superseded revision is expensive and hard to trace afterwards.
A general manufacturing package covers the standard case and leaves the parts specific to your process to spreadsheets — which is where the real scheduling and costing decisions end up being made.
Public figures on how many shops there are, how many people work in them, and how long their week runs.
5,068
Manufacturing businesses with employees operating in Alberta in June 2026.
Source: Statistics Canada, Canadian Business Counts, June 2026 (Table 33-10-1174-01)
149,500
People employed in Alberta manufacturing in 2025.
Source: Government of Alberta, Manufacturing Industry Profile, 2025
25.7%
Share of Alberta manufacturing employees working overtime in a given week in 2025, against 19.5% across all industries.
Source: Government of Alberta, Manufacturing Industry Profile, 2025
Figures verified against each source in September 2026.
The workflows a manufacturing build in this category would cover. Scope is set against your operation — and deliberately narrow on a first engagement.
Structured estimating that captures materials, labour, outside processing and margin against a rate card, so quotes come out consistent regardless of who prepared them and the basis of a price is recoverable later.
A digital traveller carrying the job through its operations — scope, drawings, current revision, stage, and who signed off — updated where the work happens rather than reconstructed afterwards.
A live view of what is in progress, what is waiting, and what is at risk against promise dates, so the office can answer a customer without walking the floor.
Requirements, purchase orders, receipts and allocation to jobs held together, so committed stock and incoming material are visible while there is still time to react to a shortage.
Inspection records, certificates and test results captured against the job that produced them, so a complete documentation package assembles itself instead of being compiled by hand.
One current version of each drawing and specification, with supersession recorded, so the floor is working to the revision the office thinks it is.
Running in production today: structured estimating that took a demolition contractor's bid process from two to three hours down to minutes, and a single operations platform that replaced five systems for a general contractor working across Edmonton and Calgary. Both are client-reported.
Estimating, travellers, document control and integration with accounting carry straight over to a fabrication shop.
The records your industry is held to are captured as the work happens, not rebuilt when someone asks. Systems can be hosted in Canada when you need it, and your data stays yours. How we handle security and data.
Inspections, certifications, revisions and sign-offs recorded against the job and the part, so the evidence a quality audit asks for — ISO 9001 or a customer's own requirements — is a query, not a hunt.
Hazard assessments, incident reports and training records kept with the people and equipment they belong to, ready for an Alberta OHS inspection or a customer's prequalification.
Personal information handled to Alberta's Personal Information Protection Act and PIPEDA, and every follow-up message built for Canada's anti-spam law — consent recorded, unsubscribe honoured at once.
Permission levels by role, a record of who changed what and when, and anything customer-facing that needs a person held for sign-off. That safeguard layer is AltaGate, and it is in every system we build.
When that is the better route, yes, and a paid discovery says which. Where your ERP or accounting system handles the standard case well, the higher-value work is the layer the spreadsheets are standing in for — estimating, travellers, quality packages — built around your process and integrated with the system you keep. Where the ERP itself is the problem, we implement one system of record for production, inventory, purchasing and scheduling, built custom or on Odoo or ERPNext, and run it for you under a monthly managed service. On either route accounting and payroll stay on the tools your accountant works in, fed by the system.
We work with the data your MES or machines already produce. Where it sits in a system with an interface, we pull it into the office view so estimates, travellers and job costs reflect what is really happening on the floor.
Narrowly and in phases, with the first phase aimed at a single workflow that is measurably costing you — most often estimating or the documentation package. That gives you working software early, a real basis for judging whether to continue, and a scope small enough that the absence of a prior manufacturing reference is a manageable risk rather than a gamble.
You do, and the data in it is yours and exportable. Hosting, data location, access control and export are settled in the scope agreement before a build starts — the Trust Center sets out the questions we work through on every project.
It depends on what you need first and what it connects to. On the 30-minute call we map how work moves through your operation and give you a rough cost range. Builds are phased so the piece that removes the biggest constraint ships first, rather than waiting on a complete system.
For Alberta manufacturers & fabricators
30 minutes. We map how a job moves from enquiry to shipped, identify the workflow costing you most, and sketch a first phase against it, with a rough cost range — including an honest read on whether we are the right partner.
Edmonton, Alberta · No commitment · 587-937-6948

Manufacturing · In testing
One record from the first request to the final job cost. The shop lead works from a tablet, and quoted versus actual updates as the work happens.
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