Houston, Texas
Manufacturing software in Houston.
Custom systems for Houston oilfield equipment and fabrication shops. We recommissioned a gas plant from twenty-year-old drawings, 646 tags. Free walkthrough.
The work
Four things we built. Different industries, same engineer.
Each one started as a problem somebody said out loud. All four are live: press the button and use the real tool.
Recommissioning a gas plant from twenty-year-old drawings.
The client bought a plant that had been shut down for years. 646 tags, thirteen questions each, before a single part could be bought. We built the system that answers them, tag by tag.
A 60-person fab shop, up for sale, and nothing written down.
The buyers loved the business and could not see how it ran. We interviewed 22 people, pulled out everything they knew, and built the whole operation into one package: flows, procedures, safety, ISO, maintenance, a legacy library. The deal closed.
A supply business that runs itself.
A teeth whitening supplier that sells to salons. One console reads the mail, chases the leads, counts the stock and writes the letters. The owner clicks only to send and to pay.
An end to end water delivery business, run from the truck.
One truck, 150 doors a week. The app asks every customer, builds the run, sends the invoice and takes the payment. The owner drives.
Your town
We have done your exact job
A client bought a gas plant that had been dark for years and wanted it running again. They had the drawings from when it was built, about twenty years old, and 646 tags on the register. Before a single part could be bought, every tag needed the same thirteen answers: does it still exist, who sells it, what does it cost, what condition, how soon, does it meet today’s ratings and area standards, is there a crossover, what is different about it, does it bolt in, does it need an adapter, does it need cutting and welding and a new spool, or does it go to engineering first.
We built the system that answers them, tag by tag. It never says a part fits. It shows every field side by side and the engineer signs (the whole job, and the live tool).
If that sounds like a Tuesday to you, that is why this page exists.
The money
28.5 hours a week. That is $1,032.
We mapped a 90 person fabrication shop. 28.5 hours every week went into work nobody sells. Re-typing a shipping slip into an invoice. Re-typing a quote into a job. Rebuilding the whiteboard schedule (the payback chart on pragmabuild.com/how-it-works).
And here is the ordinary week, before anything breaks.
- $36.21an hour, median. A production supervisor in the Houston-The Woodlands-Sugar Land metro area. US dollars.
- $1,032a week. 28.5 hours times $36.21.
- $53,664a year. $1,032 a week times 52.
Fifty three thousand dollars a year that never leaves the building.
That shop had 90 people. Yours is its own size and its own number, and the walkthrough puts a figure on it.
The work
What we build
Energy work has one rule the rest of manufacturing does not: a wrong part in a classified area is a safety problem, not a returns problem.
The shortage is visible before the job starts.
Requisition to purchase order to receipt in one line, with the vendor, what you paid last time, and the job that is standing still until it arrives.
One revision, through every quote and order.
One structure per part, versioned, so a change reaches the whole chain instead of one engineer’s folder.
The certificate exists before the inspector does.
Inspection, non conformance, corrective action and traceability, tied to the part, the job and the operator.
What the plant owns, and what it costs when it stops.
Asset register, parts and vendor sourcing, reliability rating, downtime cost and spares, which is where the gas plant job started.
You keep the system you already run. We build the parts it never covered.
Money toward it
Nobody is adding people this year
The Greater Houston Partnership’s own 2026 forecast expects the sectors tied to upstream oil, manufacturing among them, to contract as prices fall and drilling slows (Greater Houston Partnership, 11 Dec 2025, read 2 Oct 2026).
In a year like that nobody is adding people, and the work still has to go out the door with the crew that is already on the clock. That is the only argument we are going to make for this.
On help rather than money: TMAC is Texas’s centre in the federal NIST MEP network for small and mid sized manufacturers (NIST centre list, read 2 Oct 2026; TMAC). We promise you no grant and take no cut of one.
What we hear
What usually stops people
“A wrong part in a classified area is not a returns problem.”
Correct, and that is why the system never says a part fits. It puts the drawing beside the seller, twenty fields, and leaves the decision with the engineer who signs.
“Oil is down, this is the wrong year to spend.”
It is the right year to stop paying people to re-type. The map prices every item and orders it so the first build pays for the next one.
“We already run a big system.”
Most operations this size are not missing an ERP. They are missing the four things it never covered, and those four are on a spreadsheet one person maintains.
“You are in Canada.”
Two hours behind you, and most jobs run remote on a screen share and a phone camera in your operator’s hand. When the job needs boots on the floor, we get on a plane.
Next step
Book a walkthrough.
Free. Thirty minutes. A written map of your operation: every process, what it costs in hours and dollars, what can be automated, each item priced, in payback order. Yours either way.
Straight answers
- You are in Canada. Does that matter?
- No. We are in Kelowna, British Columbia, two hours behind Houston. Most work is remote and we fly when the job needs it.
- Have you done oil and gas before?
- A gas plant brought back from twenty-year-old drawings, 646 tags, thirteen questions each. The tool is live on this website and you can press it.
- We do fabrication, not plants. Does that fit?
- Yes. Fabrication, energy and resources, yards and distribution are all on the list.
- Who owns the system?
- We keep the code. You keep your data and your freedom to leave. Thirty day exit, no penalty.