Red Deer, Alberta
Manufacturing software in Red Deer.
Custom systems for Red Deer fabrication and oilfield service shops. Alberta pays half of an automation project, up to $30,000, until 31 October 2026. 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.
Money toward it
Alberta pays half, and the window closes 31 October.
The Alberta Manufacturing Productivity Grant matches 50% of an eligible project, up to $30,000, for capital equipment, robotics, automation and IoT technology, plus installation and training. It is for Alberta manufacturers with 5 to 750 employees. The provincial page has it taking applications until 31 October 2026, or until the money runs out, whichever comes first (Government of Alberta, read 2 Oct 2026; CME).
That is four weeks. The walkthrough is thirty minutes and the map is written, which is enough to put a real number and a real scope on an application before the date.
The money
What the other half buys
We mapped a 90 person fabrication shop. 28.5 hours a week went into work nobody sells (the payback chart on pragmabuild.com/how-it-works).
- $33.30an hour, median. A production supervisor in Alberta.
- $949a week. 28.5 hours times $33.30.
- $49,348a year. $949 a week times 52.
Your shop is not that shop. The walkthrough measures yours.
Your town
Yes, this is your town
Red Deer has 62,224 jobs across more than 4,000 businesses, and the City names mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction, construction and manufacturing among its key industries (City of Red Deer, read 2 Oct 2026).
The City also points at the Centre for Innovation in Manufacturing at Red Deer Polytechnic and the manufacturing trades coming out of it (same page). The people are here. The systems under them are usually a workbook.
Ninety minutes from Calgary, ninety minutes from Edmonton, and most of the service rigs and fabrication shops in between buy from you.
The work
What we build
Service rigs and fabrication shops between two cities. The work is a one off and the customer wants it yesterday.
What you paid last time, beside what you are paying now.
Requisition to purchase order to receipt in one line, with the vendor and the price history, and the job that is waiting on it named.
Costing while the job is open.
Job status, labour and material capture, stage sign off, and actual against quoted, so the next quote is built on this job and not last year’s.
The hour it costs when it is down.
Every asset catalogued with its parts, its vendors and its downtime cost, so a rebuild or replace decision is made on a number.
Written down while he is still here.
The setup lives in the man who has run that press for twenty two years. We put it in his words, attached to the machine and the part.
You keep your ERP. We build the four things it never covered.
What we hear
What usually stops people
“Every job is a one off.”
That is the normal case here, not the hard one. The bill of materials changes twice before it ships and the estimate came off last year’s numbers. A template system cannot hold that. A built one can.
“We are too busy to stop.”
It costs you a couple of hours for the walkthrough, then a short check-in each week. Your people keep working.
“We tried to replace the ERP once and it cost us a year.”
We do not do that. We build what is missing, connect it to what you already run, and leave the ERP alone.
“We will not get the grant in time.”
Thirty minutes and a written map is enough to put a real number and scope on an application before 31 October.
Next step
Book a walkthrough.
Free. Thirty minutes. A written map of your operation, every process priced, in the order it pays back. Yours either way, and it is the document a grant application needs.
Straight answers
- Do you work in central Alberta?
- Yes. Most jobs run remote on a screen share and a phone camera. When the job needs us on the floor, we come.
- Can Alberta help pay for it?
- The Alberta Manufacturing Productivity Grant matches 50% of an eligible project up to $30,000, open until 31 October 2026 or until the money is gone.
- We are an oilfield service shop, not a manufacturer. Does that fit?
- Yes. Energy and resources, yards, fleets 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.