Manufacturing
Quote faster. Reduce purchasing drag. Give production leaders their hours back.
Your team should not be losing hours rebuilding RFQ packets, checking PO variances, chasing vendor details, copying production numbers into spreadsheets, or hunting through old SOPs to answer shop-floor questions.
MVP.dev builds AI automation systems for manufacturers that plug into the tools you already use, including Epicor Kinetic, SAP Business One, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, NetSuite ERP, Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Plex, Katana, Fishbowl, JobBOSS², ECI M1, Global Shop Solutions, ProShop ERP, MRPeasy, Odoo Manufacturing, QuickBooks Enterprise, SolidWorks, and AutoCAD.
We help manufacturers respond to RFQs faster, reduce manual purchasing review, improve production visibility, and make operational knowledge easier to find without changing the systems your team already runs.
Production-ready in 3 to 4 weeks.
Get a Workflow Fit Assessment See the Manufacturing Automation DemosBuilt for manufacturers with real demand, but too much work stuck in the office
This is for job shops, contract manufacturers, industrial suppliers, equipment manufacturers, fabrication shops, component manufacturers, and multi-site operators that are busy but still depend on manual handoffs between sales, purchasing, production, quality, and finance.
You are likely a strong fit if:
- RFQs take too long because estimators rebuild the same research and quote materials by hand
- Purchasing still checks invoices, POs, packing slips, vendor details, and price changes manually
- Production meetings depend on ERP exports, spreadsheets, and tribal knowledge
- Quality, maintenance, and SOP answers are scattered across PDFs, shared drives, binders, and old emails
- Your team uses Epicor, NetSuite, Dynamics, SAP Business One, Plex, JobBOSS, Fishbowl, or a similar manufacturing stack
- You want workflow improvement inside your current systems, not a disruptive ERP migration
If sales, purchasing, production, and finance are growing but the handoffs are still manual, there is almost certainly margin, capacity, and response time trapped inside the workflow.
The fastest wins we usually find
RFQ response and quote packet prep
Slow quotes lose work before price even matters.
We build quote-prep workflows that gather customer history, part details, drawings, prior jobs, material notes, margin targets, and similar past quotes so estimators start from a complete packet instead of a blank screen.
The goal is simple:
- Prior similar jobs surfaced automatically
- Customer and part context summarized
- Material and vendor notes pulled into one place
- Estimator review kept in the loop
- Quote drafts prepared faster without changing your ERP
For many manufacturers, repeatable RFQ prep can drop from 6 to 10 hours per week to 1 to 2 hours, while helping the team respond same-day or next-day on more of the right opportunities.
See the Quote Builder Demo →PO, vendor, and invoice variance review
A missed price change, duplicate bill, or wrong vendor detail can erase margin fast.
We build purchasing review workflows that compare invoices against POs, vendor history, contracts, packing slips, quoted pricing, and unusual variance patterns before money leaves the account.
Your team gets a clear answer:
- Does the invoice match the PO?
- Did unit cost or freight change?
- Is this vendor known and approved?
- Is the variance normal or worth review?
- Should this be approved, questioned, or escalated?
This can reduce 8 to 12 hours a week of manual purchasing and AP review for smaller teams, while giving managers a cleaner control before payment approval.
See the Vendor and Invoice Review Demo →Production, backlog, and margin reporting
If the Monday meeting depends on someone rebuilding the truth in Excel, the business is already a week behind.
We build operating dashboards that pull from ERP, MRP, accounting, CRM, and shop-floor data to show backlog, late jobs, WIP, quote volume, scrap, rework, labor utilization, and margin signals in one place.
Each weekly view can show:
- Which jobs are at risk
- Where WIP is stuck
- Which customers or products are dragging margin
- What changed since last week
- Which actions should be reviewed first
The goal is to cut 4 to 8 hours of manual reporting each week and give leadership a cleaner view of where cash, capacity, and margin are getting stuck.
See the Executive Dashboard Demo →SOP, quality, and maintenance knowledge retrieval
Operators, supervisors, and quality teams should not have to search five folders and ask three people to find the current answer.
We build cited-answer systems that let approved users ask plain-English questions across SOPs, work instructions, quality manuals, maintenance procedures, equipment docs, inspection criteria, and training materials.
Every answer includes a source trail so the team can verify it before using it.
- No unsupported shop-floor answers
- No guessing from outdated PDFs
- No blind chatbot advice
- Approved sources only
- Human review where procedures require it
Manufacturers commonly recover 5 to 10 hours a week across supervisors, quality, and maintenance teams by reducing repeated searches and tribal-knowledge interruptions.
See the Knowledge Base Demo →Your current tools stay in place
We build the workflow layer around your existing manufacturing environment.
Supported and common systems include:
Your ERP stays where it is. Your MRP stays where it is. Your drawings, work instructions, quality records, and accounting systems stay in place.
We add the workflow layer that reads, routes, reviews, summarizes, and writes back when appropriate.
Three focused offers
RFQ Acceleration System
For manufacturers losing time and revenue because quote prep depends on manual research.
Includes
- RFQ workflow mapping
- Customer and part history review
- Prior quote and job retrieval
- Drawing and document intake
- Estimator review queue
- Quote packet generation
- Workflow handoff documentation
Best for
- Job shops
- Contract manufacturers
- Fabricators
- Custom equipment manufacturers
Purchasing and Vendor Control System
For teams manually checking POs, invoices, vendor changes, price variances, and approval exceptions.
Includes
- Invoice and PO intake
- Vendor matching
- Contract and quote comparison
- Variance detection
- Human review queue
- Approval routing
- Audit logs
- Optional posting back to ERP or accounting systems
Best for
- High-volume purchasing teams
- Multi-site manufacturers
- Make-to-order operations
- Manufacturers with frequent material price changes
- Teams handling vendor approvals in email
Production Visibility and Knowledge System
For manufacturers that need cleaner operating visibility and faster answers from the documents they already maintain.
Includes
- Production KPI dashboards
- Weekly operating narratives
- Backlog and WIP summaries
- Scrap and rework alerts
- SOP and quality document retrieval
- Supervisor review workflow
- Optional role-based shop-floor views
Best for
- Growing manufacturers
- Multi-shift operations
- Quality-driven shops
- Teams trying to reduce spreadsheet reporting
- Operators with too much tribal knowledge
Start with one workflow. Prove the ROI. Expand from there.
You do not need a full digital transformation project to get value.
The safest path is to pick one painful workflow, automate it, measure the results, and then expand once the system proves itself.
Most manufacturers start with one of these:
- RFQ response and quote packet prep
- PO and invoice variance review
- Vendor diligence
- Production reporting
- SOP and quality knowledge retrieval
- Maintenance document lookup
This keeps the first project focused, measurable, and easier to approve.
Typical engagement range
Most manufacturing automation builds start with a focused pilot.
Starter Workflow Pilot
Best for one high-value workflow
$7,500 to $15,000
Manufacturing Automation Buildout
Best for multiple workflows or multi-site operations
$15,000 to $40,000
Ongoing Optimization and Support
Best for teams that want continuous improvement, reporting, new workflows, and support
$1,500 to $7,500 per month
Final pricing depends on workflow count, system access, data complexity, approval rules, document quality, security needs, and whether the workflow writes back into production systems.
The first step is not a giant commitment. It is a workflow fit assessment that identifies the fastest path to measurable ROI.
What waiting costs
Manual manufacturing workflows do not just waste time. They quietly cap throughput and margin.
Every month you delay:
- Estimators lose hours rebuilding quote context instead of responding faster
- Purchasing misses price variances, duplicate bills, or vendor changes until later
- Production leaders make decisions from stale spreadsheets
- Supervisors interrupt each other for answers buried in SOPs or old job files
- Quality and maintenance teams lose time searching for the current procedure
- Growth requires more coordinators instead of better workflow leverage
If your shop is already at capacity, automation is not a luxury project. It is how you create more office and leadership capacity without simply adding headcount.
How the engagement works
Week 1: Find the highest-value leak
We review your RFQ process, purchasing workflow, production reporting flow, quality documentation, maintenance lookup process, or vendor review process.
You get:
- Workflow map
- Automation opportunity ranking
- KPI targets
- Fixed-scope recommendation
- Implementation plan
We define success before building anything.
Week 2: Build against your real workflow
We connect to the systems, documents, exports, vendor lists, quote history, job data, SOPs, or production reports needed for the selected workflow.
We build around your actual process, not a generic manufacturing template.
Week 3: Test, tune, and review
We run real historical examples through the workflow in staging. For purchasing workflows, this can include prior invoices, POs, vendor records, and known variance examples so the system can be tested against real decisions.
You see:
- Accuracy results
- Exceptions
- Failure cases
- Confidence thresholds
- Review queue behavior
- Estimated time savings
Nothing goes live until the workflow is validated.
Week 4: Deploy, monitor, and support
We deploy the workflow, train the relevant users, monitor initial results, and support the first production cycle.
You get:
- Production workflow
- Dashboard or review queue
- Documentation
- Admin handoff
- 30 days of support
- Recommendations for the next workflow
Most builds are designed to pay back in 6 to 8 weeks of live use, depending on volume, labor cost, workflow scope, and how much estimator, purchaser, supervisor, or finance time is recovered.
Built for controlled manufacturing workflows
Manufacturing automation has to respect operational data, customer requirements, IP, quality records, and approval controls.
Our systems are designed around:
- Least-privilege access
- Encrypted data in transit and at rest
- Role-based access by department, site, and function
- Human review thresholds for purchasing, quoting, and quality workflows
- Audit logs for AI-assisted decisions
- Source-grounded answers for SOPs, work instructions, and quality documents
- Client-owned cloud deployment when required
- No silent write-back below confidence threshold
- Support for ITAR, EAR, CMMC, ISO 9001, and customer security requirements where applicable
For manufacturers with defense, aerospace, automotive, medical device, ISO, customer audit, or IP protection requirements, we design the implementation around your security and compliance needs from the start.
Example outcomes
| Workflow | Before | After |
|---|---|---|
| RFQ response | Estimator rebuilds customer, part, drawing, and prior job context manually | Quote packet prepared with similar jobs, notes, and review checklist |
| PO and invoice review | Manual checks across ERP, email, PDFs, and vendor files | Variance memo with approve, review, or escalate recommendation |
| Production reporting | Weekly exports, spreadsheet cleanup, and manual meeting notes | Live dashboard with backlog, WIP, late jobs, and action summary |
| SOP and quality lookup | Supervisors search shared drives or ask the same people repeatedly | Cited answers from approved procedures and controlled documents |
| Maintenance support | Technicians hunt through equipment manuals and old service notes | Searchable maintenance knowledge base with source links |
Why MVP.dev
MVP.dev builds AI business operating systems, internal tools, and automation layers for companies that need real operational outcomes, not AI experiments.
You get:
- 25 years of software architecture and delivery experience
- AI automation strategy and implementation under one roof
- Practical systems built around existing workflows
- Human-in-the-loop design where accuracy matters
- Clear KPIs before development starts
- Production-minded delivery, not prototype theater
The goal is not to impress your team with AI.
The goal is to give them time back, reduce operational drag, and help the business produce more throughput and margin with the people and systems it already has.
Building the operating playbook too?
Our partners at osforyour.business/manufacturing cover the org-design, process, and people side of running a modern manufacturing business. We handle the execution layer that makes it run, so the system they help you design actually delivers the hours back.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much time or money can this save?
It depends on volume, but the fastest savings usually show up in RFQs, purchasing review, production reporting, and document lookup. A small manufacturer may recover 8 to 15 office hours per week from one workflow. A larger or multi-site operation may save $2,500 to $10,000 per month in recovered labor, fewer purchasing errors, faster quote turnaround, and less management time spent rebuilding reports. During Week 1, we define the target KPIs before the build starts.
Will this work with our ERP or MRP?
Usually, yes. We build around the systems you already run, including Epicor, NetSuite, Dynamics, SAP Business One, Plex, Fishbowl, JobBOSS, ECI M1, Global Shop Solutions, ProShop, MRPeasy, Odoo, and similar tools. Depending on access, we can use APIs, exports, reports, databases, approved documents, or controlled file drops.
Will this replace our ERP, MRP, QMS, or CAD tools?
No. The goal is to improve the workflow around your current stack, not force a migration. Your ERP stays in place. Your drawings stay where they are. Your quality documents stay controlled. The automation layer reads, routes, summarizes, and writes back only where appropriate and approved.
Can this handle custom manufacturing or job shop workflows?
Yes. In fact, custom and make-to-order environments often have the biggest leaks because so much context lives in prior jobs, estimator notes, drawings, vendor history, and tribal knowledge. We build against your actual workflow, not a generic manufacturing process.
Is AI making purchasing, quoting, or quality decisions?
No. The system can classify, recommend, summarize, route, and prepare actions, but review thresholds control what happens next. For sensitive workflows like quoting, supplier approval, invoice payment, or quality procedures, AI-assisted outputs should be treated as recommendations until reviewed or approved by the right person.
Can you work with controlled documents or compliance requirements?
Yes. We can design around role-based access, audit logs, source citations, approval controls, client-owned cloud deployment, and least-privilege access. For manufacturers with ITAR, EAR, CMMC, ISO 9001, customer audit, or IP protection requirements, we address those requirements before implementation.
What is the first step?
Start with a workflow fit assessment. We identify the workflow with the highest ROI potential, estimate the time or revenue impact, and recommend a focused pilot. You will know what should be built, why it matters, what it should cost, and how success will be measured before committing to a full implementation.
Get the hours, margin, and response time back
If your manufacturing business is still relying on manual RFQ prep, PO checks, spreadsheet-based production reporting, or tribal-knowledge searches, there is likely a faster way to run the operation.
MVP.dev can help you identify the highest-value workflow, build the automation layer, and deploy it inside your current manufacturing stack.
Get a Workflow Fit Assessment See the Manufacturing Automation Demos