The automated morning dashboard for job shop leaders
Know which jobs are about to go wrong, and which supplier is behind it, before the customer calls.
Shop Traveler sits above the ERP your shop already runs. Every morning it shows your managers the few jobs that need them today, the reason in plain words, and the suppliers holding them up. Nobody on the floor types anything new, and nothing in the ERP changes.
- Read-only. It never writes to your ERP.
- Refreshed every 15 minutes.
- Hosted, or on your own server.
The Overview on our demo shop, whose jobs and customers are made up. Yours is built from your own ERP.
What is catching one job worth?
Take a hydraulic manifold quoted at $32,000 with a 24% margin, now heading for 9% because its hours are running over. That is about $4,800 of margin gone. Seen at step 4 of 6, there are still two steps to re-plan, a change order to raise, or a faster machine to move it to. Seen at invoicing, it is just gone. The same goes for the overnight freight paid to rescue a date that was slipping for a week.
So the question to ask is simple: would catching one job like that each quarter pay for it?
Example figures, not a measured result.
The data is already in your ERP. Nobody can see trouble coming in it.
Answers spread across screens
"Which jobs are in trouble?" lives across job, purchase order and cost screens, and someone has to join them by hand.
One late supplier, many late jobs
A late casting quietly holds up several jobs, and nobody connects the two until the due date has passed.
Margin lost step by step
Hours run over estimate one operation at a time, and the money is gone before anyone looks.
Replacing the ERP isn't the fix
It's expensive, risky and slow, so most shops live with spreadsheets and walk-arounds instead.
How it works
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1
A small connector sits beside your ERP
We install it on a machine in your building and point it at your ERP's database, its exports or spreadsheets, or its web API, with read-only access. It reads; it never writes.
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2
It reads your jobs every 15 minutes
Jobs, operations, materials, purchase orders, costs and sales orders, sent to Shop Traveler over an encrypted connection.
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3
Your managers open one page in the morning
Fourteen risk rules flag what's late, blocked, set to miss the customer's promise, over hours or losing money, and each flag says why. The same jobs and late suppliers can arrive by email before anyone opens the page.
What your team sees
Exception Brief
The morning page: late, blocked and at-risk jobs, money at risk, and a note when trouble bunches up. Whoever takes a job acknowledges or snoozes it, so nobody chases it twice.
The job, end to end
Operations, material, purchase orders, cost breakdown and sales order on one page, already joined, with the reasons it's flagged.
Cost and finish date
Cost to finish and quoted margin against projected. A finish date from the rate the job has really been worked at.
Suppliers
A grade per supplier from its own delivery record, down to the part it is always late on, how much of what it sends is rejected, and the jobs and revenue it is holding up.
Shop Floor Board
Each work center's queue and hours due against capacity, with a wall-screen mode for the floor.
Numbers you can check
Every ERP read is recorded, and figures can be set beside your ERP's own to the cent, so a stale or odd screen says why.
Built for job shops
Job shops, fabricators and machine shops running a small or mid-tier ERP such as JobBOSS, E2 Shop System, Global Shop, Made2Manage, ECI M1 or Fishbowl, a home-grown system, or spreadsheets. Mapping your data onto Shop Traveler is part of setup, with no custom code for your shop.
Not for construction, project-based, process or batch manufacturing.
- Owner or general manager
- Revenue at risk and margin slipping, without asking anyone.
- Production manager
- The jobs to act on today, and why each one is at risk.
- Purchasing
- Which late supplier is holding up which jobs.
- Supervisor
- The queue at each work center, on a screen on the floor.
- Customer service
- An early, honest answer to "will my order be on time?"
Your data, handled carefully
Read-only, always
The connector uses a read-only login. Shop Traveler never writes to your ERP.
Walled off
Each customer's data is kept apart in the database, and connector keys are hashed and can be revoked.
Hosted or on site
We host it for you, or run the same containers on your own server if the data must stay in the building.
Deleted on request
A written retention policy says what we keep and for how long, and we delete your data when you ask.
Start with a 90-day pilot
A paid pilot on your own data, judged against success criteria we agree on the first day, with a review at day 60.
- The connector installed and your ERP mapped
- Our numbers reconciled against your own
- Risk thresholds set for how your shop runs
- A weekly half-hour together in the first month
- No commitment past the first month
Working with us
A direct line to the founder. Your questions go straight to the person who builds it, who answers them and fixes what's wrong. There is no ticket queue.
Pilot shops shape the product. What the first shops need is what gets built next, so it grows around how real plants run.
Request a pilotGuides
How to tell which jobs will be late before the customer calls
Six warning signs that a job shop job is heading for a late ship date, how to check them by hand from your ERP, and how to get the list every morning.
How to measure supplier on-time delivery in a job shop
The supplier on-time delivery formula, why average days late and reject rate matter as much, how to grade suppliers per part, and how to tie late orders to jobs.
How to catch job cost overruns before you invoice
Three early signs a job is losing margin, how to project a job’s cost to finish from the hours already worked, and what you can still change at step 4 of 6.
Get more out of the ERP you already run, without replacing it
How Shop Traveler reads job, purchase order and cost data from your ERP database, CSV or Excel exports, or web API, read-only, with a mapping instead of custom code.
Questions
Is this a digital traveler or router?
No. A traveler rides with the part from center to center. Shop Traveler sits above your ERP and watches every job's routing, material and cost at once, so the people running the shop see which travelers are in trouble without walking the floor. Keep using the travelers you have.
Does it change anything in our ERP?
No. The connector reads through a read-only login and never writes. Your people keep working in the ERP exactly as they do today.
Do operators have to enter anything new?
No. Everything comes from what's already in the ERP. If something isn't recorded there, Shop Traveler says so rather than guessing.
Which ERPs and systems does it work with?
Shop Traveler isn't tied to one ERP. The connector reads databases, CSV and Excel files, and web APIs today, and a mapping file written during setup turns your data, whatever it's called in your system, into jobs, operations and orders. Running something else, like Access, FileMaker or Google Sheets? Ask us: a new kind of source is a small addition, because the mapping is the same.
Where does our data live?
Either on our hosted service, kept apart from every other customer's, or on your own server. We delete it on request under a written retention policy.
What does it cost?
The pilot is a one-time setup fee plus a modest monthly fee, with no commitment past the first month. We'll give you exact numbers on the first call.
What doesn't it do yet?
It shows open work, not a scorecard of finished jobs. There is a morning email, but no alert the moment a job goes late, and no user roles yet, and custom screens or reports are quoted separately.
Request a pilot
Three fields, and we'll reply within one business day to set up a 30-minute look at what Shop Traveler would show you.
Or email [email protected].