Vernon, British Columbia
Manufacturing software in Vernon.
Custom systems for Vernon food, wood and metal manufacturers. The average shop here has about fifteen people. Free thirty minute walkthrough, and you keep the map.
The money
The average shop here has fifteen people. That is why this hurts.
Vernon and the North Okanagan have about 100 manufacturing firms employing over 1,500 people. Manufacturing is 11% of the regional workforce (City of Vernon manufacturing sector profile, read 18 Sep 2026).
100 firms and 1,500 people works out at about fifteen people a firm.
At fifteen people, there is no IT department. There is one person who built the workbook, and everything runs through it.
Here is the cost of that, measured. On a 90 person shop we mapped, 28.5 hours a week went into work nobody sells (the payback chart on pragmabuild.com/how-it-works).
- $30.18an hour, median. A production supervisor in the Thompson-Okanagan.
- $860a week. 28.5 times $30.18.
- $44,727a year. $860 a week times 52.
Wage: Job Bank, Production Supervisor, Manufacturing, Thompson-Okanagan, read 18 Sep 2026.
That shop had 90 people. A fifteen person shop does not lose 28.5 hours. It loses fewer hours, from fewer people, and it hurts more, because there is nobody spare. We measure your real number on the walkthrough. We do not guess it.
Your town
Yes, this is your town
Six kinds of firm make up over two thirds of manufacturing here: food and drink production, sawmilling and wood processing, paper, fabricated metal, machinery, and furniture (City of Vernon). Agriculture was the engine before that and still feeds most of it.
The biggest single industrial site in the region is the Okanagan Industrial Eco Park in Coldstream: 91 acres and 450,000 square feet on the old glass plant land, described as 54% of all serviced industrial land in the region (BC Hydro site listing, read 18 Sep 2026).
We are 50 km down the highway, about 52 minutes (Kelowna to Vernon). That is closer than most people’s commute.
The work
What we build
Food and drink production runs on traceability and on lot codes. Wood and metal run on the schedule and the shortage list. Both run on paper here.
Know it was checked.
The check happens on a device at the station, tied to the part, the job and the operator, with photographs. It comes back in seconds when an auditor asks.
Know what it is made of.
One structure per part, versioned, with what it takes to build it and what that costs today.
Know what runs next.
A live schedule tied to real capacity and real due dates.
Know it got billed.
The quote becomes the job, the job becomes the shipment, the shipment becomes the invoice. Typed once.
Money toward it
Who pays for it
The BC Manufacturing Jobs Fund is closed. Its page says so plainly (BC government, read 18 Sep 2026).
What is open is the federal Regional Tariff Response Initiative, run by Pacific Economic Development Canada. It funds “equipment and technology adoption, including automation and digitization” and “productivity improvements and process modernization.” You need to be an incorporated for profit business with at least $1 million in revenue and real exposure to tariffs or exports. No fixed deadline is posted (PacifiCan RTRI, read 18 Sep 2026).
If tariffs have hit your order book this year, that is the one to look at.
What we hear
What usually stops people
“We are too small for custom software.”
Fifteen people is the size we like. The systems on this website all started as one problem somebody said out loud.
“One person knows how it all works.”
That is the risk, not the system. We write down what is in his head while he is still here, in his words, attached to the machine and the part.
“We cannot afford a year of implementation.”
You do not get one. You see working pieces every week and there is no reveal at the end.
“We do not have clean data.”
Nobody does. That is most of the first two weeks and it is the same job whether you start now or next year.
Next step
Book a walkthrough.
Free. Thirty minutes. You get a written map of your operation, priced, in payback order. You keep the map either way.
Straight answers
- How far away are you?
- About 50 km, roughly 52 minutes down Highway 97. Most work is remote, and we come when the job needs it.
- We are a food plant. Does that fit?
- Yes. Food and drink production is one of the six biggest kinds of manufacturer in this region.
- Is fifteen people too small?
- No. Ten to five hundred.
- What does it cost my people?
- A couple of hours for the walkthrough, then a short check-in each week while it is built.