Fabrication Shops
Keep the drops in inventory, the weld records on the job, and the schedule honest while parts are out at the finisher.
Cutting, forming, welding and finishing to a drawing, often with outside processing in the middle.
Fabrication is four shops in a row. Material gets cut, parts get formed, the assembly gets welded, and then it leaves the building for plating, powder or galvanizing before it can ship. Every handoff is a place the job stops being visible. The drop from a sheet goes on a rack and is never found again. The weld procedure and the welder continuity log live in a binder somebody updates from memory. The job at the plater exists as a line on a whiteboard. WorkCell keeps the routing, the material issue, the inspection record and the job cost in one place, so a job sitting at an outside operation is still a job with a date, a cost and a position in the schedule.
A nest leaves usable material behind, somebody writes a size on it with a marker, and it goes on the rack. Nothing in the system knows it exists, so the next job orders a full sheet while the remnant that would have covered it ages into scrap. The shop's yield number is a theory, and working capital sits on the floor in pieces nobody can locate. The rack gets cleared out on a slow week and a year of usable plate leaves as scrap weight.
The nest is built in the cutting software against whatever stock the programmer can see. The job cost is calculated somewhere else against a standard material quantity. Neither reflects what the sheet actually produced, so a nest that ran at sixty percent utilization and one that ran at ninety cost the job the same, and the shop never learns which parts nest badly together.
The codes make procedure qualification records the fabricator's to hold and require welder continuity to be maintained, but they are silent on how, so most shops use a spreadsheet and a binder. When an inspector asks whether the welder who ran that joint was current on that procedure on that date, the answer is assembled from a log somebody has been meaning to update.
Parts leave for anodize, galvanize or powder and the tracking becomes a whiteboard, a packing slip and a phone call. The lead time is real and the risk of loss is real, but the job is invisible in the plan for the week or more that it is gone. When it comes back short, reconciling what went out against what returned is a manual count on a dock against a packing slip nobody matched to a job.
Grinding, fit-up, distortion correction and the rework after a visual inspection are a large share of the hours in a weldment and almost never a line on the quote. They get absorbed as shop time, so a complicated weldment and a simple one look alike on paper. The shop keeps winning the hard work at the easy price and calling it a bad month.
One routing from cutting through finishing
Cut, form, weld, grind, inspect and finish are operations in sequence on a single routing, each with its own setup, run time and work center. The job has one position in the plan rather than a status per department, so the schedule respects the fact that a weldment cannot be welded before the parts are formed. Fit-up, grinding and distortion correction can be their own operations, which is how those hours stop hiding inside the weld step.
Outside operations flagged on the routing they belong to
Plating, galvanizing, powder and heat treat exist as subcontracted operations on the routing, so the lead time is in the plan and the job keeps its place in the schedule while it is away. Raising the purchase order to the finisher is a separate purchasing action rather than something the operation generates for you.
Material issued and costed against the job that consumed it
Sheet, plate, tube and consumables are issued to the job and post to its cost as they move, with inventory tracked in pieces. The job's material cost comes from what was actually issued rather than from a standard, which is what makes the comparison between quoted and actual material worth reading at all.
Lot traceability forward from the mill certificate
Receiving records the lot and its material certification, and every issue to a job preserves that link. A finished weldment resolves back to the heats of plate it was cut from, which is what a customer asking for certs on a structural assembly is actually asking for, without anyone keeping a parallel log. A containment question about a suspect heat becomes a query instead of a search through receiving paperwork.
Inspection and nonconformance at the operation
Inspection templates and AQL sampling define what gets checked after cutting, after welding and before finishing. Results are recorded at the operation, a failure raises a severity-classified nonconformance with a disposition, and a repeating failure escalates into an 8-D corrective action tied to the job that produced it.
Job cost posted as the work happens, department by department
Every labor entry and material issue posts against the job as it occurs. A weldment that lost money shows whether it was lost in fit-up, in the weld booth or at the finisher, which is the resolution a shop needs to fix the estimate for that kind of work rather than raise the rate on everything.
One routing through cutting, forming, welding and finishing, with finite scheduling.
PurchasingPurchase orders to platers, galvanizers and coaters against a supplier catalog.
InventorySheet, plate and remnant stock in pieces, with lot and material certification.
QualityInspection templates, nonconformances with disposition, and 8-D corrective action.
Quoting, inventory, scheduling, purchasing and job costing on one database.
MESTerminals capturing hours, quantity and scrap through each department.
QMSInspection records, nonconformances and corrective action tied to the weldment.
APSFinite scheduling that keeps a job in the plan while it sits at an outside process.
One-off and short-run work where the quote is the whole business.
Machine ShopsPrecision CNC work where setup against cycle time decides the margin.
Metal ManufacturingMaterial certification, heat lots and yield across metal processing work.
PurchasingSupplier catalog and purchase orders, including outside processing.
How do you keep track of remnants and drops so they actually get used?
Most shops label the drop and rack it, which is how a remnant becomes scrap. WorkCell can carry a remnant as stock with its own quantity and location, so it is visible when the next job needs material. It does not nest parts for you; the cutting software still decides the layout.
Does WorkCell nest parts on a sheet?
No. There is no nesting engine and no CAD or CAM integration. Your cutting software produces the nest and the program. WorkCell handles everything around it: the material issued, the routing the parts follow afterward, the job cost, and the inspection and traceability records that go with them.
Where do welding procedure and welder qualification records belong?
The code makes them the fabricator's records to hold and keep accessible, and it does not prescribe a system. WorkCell keeps inspection records and nonconformances against the job and the operation. It does not author procedure qualification records or run a welder continuity log, so those stay in your quality system.
How do I keep a job visible while it is out for plating?
Make the outside process an operation on the routing. The lead time is then in the schedule and the job keeps its position in the plan instead of living on a whiteboard. You still raise the purchase order to the plater yourself, as a purchasing action against that supplier.
Can I trace a finished weldment back to the plate it was cut from?
Yes. Receiving captures the lot and its mill certificate, and every issue to a job preserves the link through cutting, forming and welding. A shipped assembly resolves backward to the heats of material in it, the operators who ran each operation, and the inspection results recorded against them.
Does WorkCell make my shop compliant with a welding standard?
No system does that. WorkCell keeps records a standard asks for: inspection results at the operation, severity-classified nonconformances, corrective action and lot traceability. Certification and welder qualification are granted to your company by a registrar or an inspector, not to the tool you keep the records in.
See where WorkCell fits your shop.
Tell us how material, welding records and outside processing move through your shop today and we will tell you straight whether WorkCell is a fit.