Short answer
AI is most useful in a metal fabrication shop or job shop wherever people lose hours retyping paperwork or chasing status, which usually means quoting, reading drawings, scheduling, job tracking, purchasing, timesheets, and order entry. The best results come from AI that connects to the shop's existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and spreadsheets, so nobody has to change systems to get the benefit. Lattice Partners is an AI implementation partner based in Los Angeles and New York that helps companies build an AI strategy, trains their teams on AI tools, and builds custom agents and software, including for metal fabricators.
- Quoting and estimating are where most fab shops start, because owners and engineers are the bottleneck on every quote.
- AI reads documents shops already get: requests for quote (RFQs), drawings, supplier quotes, purchase orders (POs), and handwritten timesheets.
- A shared live view of every job (the "big board") replaces chasing people for status.
- AI can work on top of JobBOSS, Epicor, Acumatica, NetSuite, or Excel. You don't need a new ERP.
- You pay for a custom build once and own it, whereas ERP add-on modules are usually licensed by the year.
What are the best AI use cases for metal fabricators and job shops?
The best AI use cases for metal fabricators and job shops are the repeated office tasks that hold up the shop floor. Below are 12 of them, with the pain each one causes, what AI does about it, and a sensible first step.
| Use case | The pain | What AI does | Where to start |
|---|---|---|---|
| Quoting | The owner or lead engineer personally reviews every quote, so quotes queue up | Reads the RFQ, drafts a priced quote from your rates, sends it to an estimator to approve | Your last 50 to 100 quotes and your current rate sheet |
| Estimating from drawings | Takeoffs from PDFs and prints are slow and vary by estimator | Extracts parts, materials, dimensions, welds, and finishes from drawings into a draft estimate | One common part family or project type |
| Quote win/loss analysis | No feedback on which machine, material, or rate assumptions win or lose | Matches sent quotes to outcomes and shows patterns by customer, part type, and margin | Export of quotes with a won/lost field |
| Production scheduling | The weekly schedule is rebuilt in Excel for hours, by chasing people for inputs | Drafts the schedule from open jobs, capacity, and due dates, and flags resource conflicts | Your current scheduling spreadsheet |
| Shop floor job tracking (big board) | No shared real-time view of where each job stands | Pulls status from the floor into one live board: material received, in fab, in weld, shipped, hours vs budget | A list of active jobs and their stages |
| Purchasing and receiving | RFQs to suppliers, quotes, POs, and deliveries live in phone calls and Word attachments | Reads supplier quotes and confirmations, logs them, and flags late or partial deliveries | Your purchasing inbox |
| Material tracking | Nobody is sure what's on the rack or which job it's committed to | Matches receipts, heat numbers, and cut lists to jobs | Receiving paperwork and inventory sheet |
| Timesheets and job costing | Handwritten timesheets are retyped into payroll and spreadsheets, and split time is lost | Reads timesheet photos or simple digital entries and assigns hours to jobs and tasks | One crew or one department for two pay periods |
| Order entry from email and PDF | Customer POs are retyped into the ERP by hand | Reads the PO, checks it against the quote, and creates the order in the ERP for review | The inbox where POs arrive |
| Inspection and quality documents | Inspection docs are built one at a time from drawings | Generates inspection sheets from drawing callouts and tracks quality and receiving status in one place | One recurring part or customer spec |
| Engineering submittals and CAD/DXF work | Engineers spend lead time on submittals and file prep, often for quotes that don't close | Drafts submittal packages and handles repetitive file prep for engineer review | Your submittal template |
| Plain-English reporting on shop data | Answers sit in the ERP but take a report request to get | Lets a manager ask "which jobs are over budget on weld hours?" and get an answer from live data | Read-only access to your ERP database |
Which AI use case should a fab shop start with?
Most fab shops should start with quoting, because it's the task where one person is the bottleneck and the work comes in every day. Engineering time on quotes can eat a large share of the lead time on a job, and much of it goes to quotes that never close.
A good first project comes up many times a week and starts from a document or spreadsheet the shop already has. It helps a lot if someone can check the output in a minute or two. Quoting and order entry usually fit, and so do timesheets. Scheduling and the big board tend to come second, once the shop trusts the first tool.
"Step one is usually digitization: getting your data off paper and out of scattered spreadsheets and into the right place. Then build one real solution that works well before moving on to the next."
Martin Anquetil, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Lattice Partners
Should you use your existing ERP or buy another module?
For most fab shops, keeping the existing ERP and adding AI on top makes more sense than buying another module from the ERP vendor. A custom AI tool can read from and write to the ERP you already run, so your data stays where it is.
ERP vendors often sell quoting, scheduling, or configure-price-quote (CPQ) features as add-ons. NetSuite's own CPQ page says "NetSuite CPQ is available as an add-on module," and that the NetSuite license is an annual fee made up of the core platform, optional modules, and the number of users (NetSuite). Under that model, every module you add shows up on the bill again next year.
| Approach | How you pay | Fits custom fab work | Who owns it |
|---|---|---|---|
| ERP add-on module | Yearly subscription on top of your ERP license | Built around the ERP's data model; custom work may not fit | The ERP vendor |
| Standalone AI software | Monthly or yearly per-seat fee | Varies; you adapt to its workflow | The software vendor |
| Custom build on your existing ERP | One-time build | Built around how your shop quotes and schedules | You own the code |
A custom AI layer can also work with messy data, such as old quotes in folders and spreadsheets, which an ERP module usually can't.
Reading drawings is covered in using AI to read drawings and estimate fabrication jobs.
What data does a fab shop need to get started with AI?
Getting started with AI takes less data than most fab shop owners expect. Past quotes, current rate sheets, a sample of drawings, and access to the ERP (or the spreadsheets that stand in for it) are enough, and none of it needs to be clean first.
Useful starting material includes past quotes with their outcome, your labor, machine, and material rates, margin rules, drawings for a handful of typical jobs, the current schedule (even in Excel), and sample timesheets, POs, and inspection sheets. A first tool, such as a quoting assistant or an order entry agent, can ship in weeks. Pick one number to judge it by, like quote turnaround time or hours of retyping removed.
How Lattice Partners does this
Lattice Partners builds custom AI tools for metal fabricators, job shops, and other manufacturers. We start by learning how the shop runs, including who does the quoting and where the paperwork piles up. If AI isn't the right answer for a task, we tell you. Otherwise we design around the ERP and spreadsheets you already use, and around how comfortable your team is with software. First versions of a well-scoped project usually ship within a few weeks, and we train the people who'll use them. Most tools go through two to three iterations based on real use. Each build is one-time, and you own the code, with no per-module or per-seat license from us. Cost depends on scope. See our manufacturing work.
See our AI for manufacturers page for the services behind these use cases.
Frequently asked questions
Can AI work with JobBOSS, Epicor, or Acumatica?
AI tools can usually connect to ERPs such as JobBOSS, Epicor, Acumatica, and NetSuite through their application programming interfaces (APIs), database access, or file exports, depending on what your version and license allow. The AI reads job, quote, and inventory data from the ERP and writes back orders or updates for a person to approve.
Does AI replace estimators?
AI doesn't replace estimators in a fab shop. The AI drafts estimates and quotes, which frees the estimator to check them and make the pricing calls instead of doing takeoffs and data entry. A person approves every quote before it goes out.
Do we need to clean up our data first?
A fab shop doesn't need clean data before starting with AI. Scanned timesheets and old quote folders are fine as inputs, and the first project often cleans up a good chunk of the data as a side effect.
What does a custom AI tool cost to maintain?
A custom AI tool has no license fee from Lattice Partners because the client owns the code. Ongoing costs are the AI model usage and hosting, plus any improvements you choose to make.
Related reading
About Lattice Partners
Lattice Partners is an AI implementation partner based in Los Angeles and New York. We help companies build an AI strategy, train their employees on AI tools like ChatGPT and Claude, and build custom AI agents and software. Clients own the code we build. Lattice Partners was founded by Colin McDonnell, Martin Anquetil, and Christian Yeghnazar. Contact us to talk about your use case.