Sheet Metal Cutting Module for a Machinery Manufacturer
A fixed-price extension of a machinery manufacturer's in-house production system: one traceable flow for laser-cut parts, from the designer's CAD file through nesting and the laser queue to stock and assembly. Designed, built and handed over in four months.
Technologies used
PHP, JavaScript, MySQL, Docker, DXF file processing, barcode labels
Tools
Jira, GitHub, GitHub Actions
4
Project members
4 months
Project length
Custom Software Development
Category
Manufacturing
Branch
The challenge
Our client builds machinery for the wood-processing industry and runs its business on a long-lived in-house production system covering projects, stock, purchasing, working time and assembly. We have worked with them for years, earlier on the software for their board-cutting equipment. This time the gap was on their own shop floor: the system had no module for sheet metal and plastic parts cut on the laser. The client wanted the whole path in one place, with a record at every step: a designer asks for parts, someone nests them onto sheets, the operator burns them, the stock level changes, and assembly checks that everything has arrived. We had to build the module inside a mature system that was already running in production, without breaking the modules people used every day. We had to read the output files of the client's nesting software reliably, including their local number formats, and get the material balance right when sheets are used and offcuts come back to stock. The scope and price were fixed, so we started with a month of process analysis and a UX/UI design that became the contractual specification.
The hard part was not the screens. We had to add a new process to a system the plant relies on every day and make sure every sheet and every offcut still added up in stock. That is why we designed the whole flow first and only then wrote code.
Key Features
- Cutting requests linked to projects: designers upload CAD (DXF) files with thickness, material grade, quantity and priority, and the system generates thumbnails
- Nesting import: the system reads the nesting output and shows sheet size, part list, net mass, recovered mass and scrap for each cutting plan, and blocks duplicate files
- Laser operator queue with priorities, urgent-part counts, filters such as burned today or yesterday, and a start/finish action for each sheet
- Per-part result reporting (OK or faulty), with faulty parts sent back to planning
- Stock integration: the sheet is taken from stock when burning finishes, and reusable offcuts go back into stock as remnants
- Completeness check for assembly: percentage of parts ready per project, missing or damaged parts reported, and print-ready lists
- Role-based access for designers, CNC operators and assemblers, with a full change history on every item
The result
The module was delivered under a fixed-price order in three instalments between January and March 2026, and the final invoice closed the order at the end of March. The work began with a month of process analysis and UX/UI design in December 2025. That design became the specification for the build, so the client knew in advance exactly what they were paying for. The cutting flow now runs inside the client's own system instead of beside it. After handover the client kept sending requests that came from daily use, such as full order numbering on cut parts, sharper previews, extra filters and uploading many files at once. We handle these as part of our ongoing cooperation. Alongside the build we set up a containerised environment with automated deployments, so changes reach the client in small, safe steps.
- One traceable path from the designer's CAD file to the assembly bench
- Sheet and offcut stock updated automatically when burning finishes
- Fixed scope, fixed price and on-schedule handover after a design-first discovery phase
- New module added to a live legacy system without replacing it
- Automated build and deployment pipeline for further changes
We walked through the workshop with the designers, the laser operator and the people on assembly, and drew the process the way they actually work. Because that design was agreed before any code was written, the fixed-price build had no surprises on either side.
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Agnes
business development specialist
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