Steel Center ERP
An ERP and AI production planner for steel service centers. It drafts the day’s schedule, tracks every coil by barcode and logs quality right at the machine.
PROBLEM
The whole business ran on paper. Schedules lived in printouts and phone calls, and coil details were split across mill certs, an Access database and handwritten tags.
SOLUTION
I spent a week on their floor learning how each role worked, then designed an ERP around those workflows. Planning, scanning and quality checks now happen on a tablet at every station.
TEAM
COO, CEO, engineering, operators, owners, back office, sales
TOOLS
Figma, Claude, Cursor, LineSight
Inside the product
LineSight
Home
Planner
Shop floor
Orders
Inventory
Quality
Shipping
Finance
Good morning
Thursday, Sep 30 · 3 slitters on the floor
Plan SL 60 for today. Rush orders first and keep scrap under 2%.
Plan it
What’s late this week?
Which coils fit SO 30044?
Draft tomorrow’s schedule
Today’s plan
WO 07128
SL 38 · Northfield Tool
Running
WO 07131
SL 60 · Harbor Fastener
Queued
WO 07133
SL 26 · Keystone Stamping
Queued
WO 07015
SL 38 · Knife change
On hold
Shop floor
SL 26
33 queued
SL 38
Running WO 07128
SL 60
Setup 1 of 2
18
orders due this week
11,067
lbs produced today
1.7%
scrap today
Plan the day in one sentence
Schedulers type what they need in plain language. LineSight drafts the day from open orders and coil on hand, and the same plan shows up on every station.
Impact: One plan for the office and the floor. A rush order gets replanned in a sentence instead of a round of phone calls.
Every choice explained
Each draft shows its cut plans and the reasons behind them. A scheduler reviews and releases it, the same sign off step they already did on paper.
LineSight
Home
Planner
Shop floor
Orders
Inventory
Quality
Shipping
Finance
Plan SL 60 for today. Rush orders first and keep scrap under 2%.
Plan for SL 60, Thursday
Draft
2 setups · 22,410 lbs · est. scrap 1.8%
Setup 1 · SO 30053 rush, due tomorrow
5.394
5.394
5.394
1.625
1.625
40.068
Setup 2 · SO 30061 and SO 30064
12.25
12.25
11.5
11.5
11.75
Why this plan
· Rush order SO 30053 runs first so it ships tomorrow
· Pairs 5.394 and 1.625 widths to use the full 60 inch master
· Skips coil 108069, already reserved for SO 30044
Release to floor
Adjust plan
LineSight
Home
Planner
Shop floor
Orders
Inventory
Quality
Shipping
Finance
Shop floor
SL 26
33 queued
SL 38
8 queued
SL 60
Running setup 1 of 2
Setup 1 of 2
On the line
Break at 20 of 41
5,855 lbs
0
12
24
36
48
60
5.394
5.394
5.394
40.068
Master 60 in · cuts 59.5 · trim 0.375 · scrap 0.125 (0.2%)
5.394 × 1
SO 30053 · Lakeshore Metals · 526 lbs
Running · Setup 1
Next: Setup 2
Run setup 2
Pause
Completed today
2
runs
11,067
lbs
Quality record
WO 07016
12 tags · checks passed
WO 07009
19 tags · checks passed
Scrap you can see
Cut plans are drawn to scale with scrap marked, so a wasteful setup is obvious before the knives are set.
Impact: Waste gets caught on screen before it’s cut. One real job showed 35.5% scrap before it ran.
One scan, the whole coil
Before: Coil details were split across mill certs, an Access database and handwritten tags, and finding one meant walking the warehouse with a printout.
Now: Every coil and skid gets a printed barcode tag. One scan pulls up its grade, heat, weight, location and the order it’s promised to, so inventory updates itself as material moves.
Scan
Bay 3
Coil 108069 scanned
304 2B stainless
0.050 × 48 in · 6,240 lbs
Heat
2245781
Location
Bay 3, row B
Mill cert
On file
Received
Sep 12
Promised to
SO 30044
Status
Ready to slit
History
Received at dock · Sep 12
Cert matched to heat · Sep 12
Moved to bay 3 · Sep 13
Promised to Northfield Tool · Sep 20
Start slitting
Print tag
COIL 108069
304 2B · .050 × 48 · 6,240 lb
Heat 2245781 · Bay 3B
Where the software lives
I mapped where each role stood during a shift and put a station at every decision point: on each slitter between the uncoiler and recoiler, plus packaging, shipping and receiving.
Layout simplified. Stations 1 to 3 sit on the slitters, 4 to 6 at packaging, shipping and receiving.
Before: weigh tickets, a clipboard and handwritten notes at the shipping desk.
after linesight.
After: a LineSight station on the floor, with the tablet stand and a label printer for coil tags.
Built around where operators stand
A station sits between the uncoiler and recoiler, right where operators already work. A scanner on a coiled cord checks in each coil, and one large button closes the order and prints the tags, gloves on.
Impact: No more walks to the office between jobs. Tags print right at the line.
Run jobs
SL 38
On the line: WO 07028, Harbor Fastener, 2 cuts
Released
Running
Tail out
Complete WO 07028 and print tags
Today’s work orders
WO 07015
Knife change
On hold
WO 07028
Harbor Fastener, 2 cuts
On the line
WO 07132
Keystone Stamping, 3 cuts
WO 07158
Northfield Tool, 3 cuts
Run jobs
SL 38
WO 07128 done at 10:03 AM
Quality record
9:37
Gauge
0.0574 in
Pass
9:37
Surface
Clean
Pass
9:37
Knife marks
None
Pass
9:38
Width at 2.281
2.285 in
Pass
10:03
Gauge
0.0581 in
Pass
Cutting plan · WO 07128
2.281
2.281
2.281
2.281
2.281
2.281
Est. scrap 168 lbs (3.4%)
Run log
Running to tail out · M.B. · 10:03
6 tags printed, 168 lbs scrap · M.B. · 10:03
Completed · M.B. · 10:03
The pencil marks, digitized
Operators log gauge, width and surface checks at the machine in the order they always did, timestamped and signed.
Impact: Quality records reach the office the moment a run ends, with nothing to retype.
Screens recreated from the LineSight product. Customer and operator names changed.
Outcome
Built with the floor, used by the floor.
The client went live about two months after our week on site, with operators running jobs and printing tags from stations at every line.