Portland, Oregon
Manufacturing software in Portland.
Custom systems for Portland metals and machinery shops. 574 establishments, four times the national concentration. Free thirty minute 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.
The money
28.5 hours a week. That is $1,049.
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).
With 574 shops in this metro, that is the cost of one of them standing still.
- $36.79an hour, median. A production supervisor in the Portland-Vancouver-Hillsboro metro area. US dollars.
- $1,049a week. 28.5 hours times $36.79.
- $54,548a year. $1,049 a week times 52.
Fifty four thousand dollars a year, and not one dollar of it ships.
Your shop is not that shop. We count your real hours on the walkthrough.
Your town
Yes, this is your town
Greater Portland has 574 metals and machinery establishments employing 22,600 people. That is four times the national concentration of these companies, and the workforce is growing at twice the national rate (Greater Portland Inc, read 2 Oct 2026).
Machinery, iron and steel, fabricated metals, aircraft components, vehicles and specialised vessels (same page). Short runs, custom work, and an estimate that was made from last year’s numbers.
Five hundred and seventy four shops in one metro means your competitors are close and your customers can shop. What you cannot afford is a week finding out what a job actually cost.
The work
What we build
Five hundred and seventy four shops in one metro. Your customers can shop, so what you cannot afford is a week finding out what a job cost.
What the job actually cost, before it closes.
Labour and material land on the job as they happen, with stage sign off, and actual sits beside quoted while there is still something you can do about it.
One structure per part, versioned.
Multi level bills of material with routings, standard cost, where used and change history, for work that is never the same twice.
Price history, and a match before you pay.
Requisitions, approvals, purchase orders, vendor records and expediting, with a three way match to the invoice.
The quote that wins is the one built on real numbers.
Quote to job to shipment to invoice, typed once, with the costing from the last job feeding the next estimate.
You keep the system you already run. We build the parts it never covered.
Money toward it
Assume it is your money
We do not promise grant money, and we never take a percentage of somebody else’s.
Oregon’s centre in the federal NIST MEP network is the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership, which exists for small and mid sized manufacturers in this state (NIST centre list, read 2 Oct 2026; OMEP). Call them before you commit your own budget.
Assume it is your money. Then the only question that matters is which piece pays back first, and that is the question the map answers.
What we hear
What usually stops people
“We do not know what a job cost until it is closed.”
Then you are quoting the next one blind. Labour and material land on the job as they happen, and actual sits beside quoted while there is still time to do something about it.
“Every job is a one off.”
That is the normal case here, not the hard one. Nothing comes off a template, because nothing you make does either.
“We are too busy to stop.”
A couple of hours for the walkthrough, then a short check-in each week. Your people keep working.
“You are in Canada.”
Same time zone, same working day. 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 come.
Next step
Book a walkthrough.
Free. Thirty minutes. A written map of the shop: every process, its real cost, what can be automated, in payback order. You keep it either way.
Straight answers
- You are in Canada. Does that matter?
- No. We are in Kelowna, British Columbia, on Pacific time, the same clock as your plant. Most work is remote and we come when the job needs it.
- We build custom equipment, never the same twice. Does that fit?
- That is the normal case here, not the hard one.
- Can we start small?
- That is how all of them started. One problem, said out loud, and a first working piece inside two days.
- Who am I dealing with?
- Christopher. He runs the walkthrough, he writes the code, and he stays on the job through handover.