The bottleneck
"The scheduler was reshuffling the board eleven times a week. Every time something slipped, nobody knew until the customer called asking where their parts were. Our on-time delivery was 71%. We were apologetically late — every single week."
Tri-State runs structural steel for mid-size commercial projects. The work is high-stakes — general contractors have hard drop-dead dates, and delays ripple through the whole job. But with 84 people on the floor and no shared view of capacity, the scheduler was essentially guessing every morning.
When something slipped — a material delay, a machine issue, a crew shortage — the whole team found out the same way the customer did: a phone call. There was no early warning system, no way to see what was at risk until it was already at risk.
What we built
Three modules that gave the whole shop a single source of truth — so problems get seen before the customer has to report them:
Active Projects
Connected schedule + capacity view. Every job has a live status card — who's working it, where it stands, when it's due. When something slips, the board shows it before anyone has to ask.
Inventory
Material status tied to job records. Steel arrivals and cut-to-length delays show up in the job record — not in a text thread that half the team missed.
Staff
Floor visibility so the whole team sees when something slips. Every crew lead can check capacity against the schedule before committing to a delivery — and the ops manager can see it too.
What changed
| Metric | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| On-time delivery | 71% | 94% |
| Schedule reshuffles per week | 11 | 2–3 |
| Customer "where's my order?" calls | Weekly | Rare |
| Lead time predictability | ±3 days | ±0.5 days |
"We stopped guessing. The schedule holds — and when it doesn't, everyone sees it and adapts before the customer has to ask." — Operations Manager, Tri-State Steel Fabrication
Note: Case studies are based on real shop archetypes. Details are fictionalized for privacy.