Serving Our Customers With Excellence Through AI and Automation

At All Metals Fabricating, we have a “why” that drives all of our actions: To serve our customers with excellence. And in today’s landscape, that requires us to pay close attention to the latest advances in software and AI. These tools are helping us increase our efficiency and become more responsive to customer needs. 

Smarter Scheduling as We Grow

As our company continues to grow, scheduling becomes more complex. We are managing long-term repeat production work, assemblies with multiple components, and orders that must move through several departments before completion.

To help, we’ve recently invested in SkyPlanner, an automated production scheduling platform that uses AI features to optimize activity on our shop floor. We have customized the system to our shop so that it reflects how our shop actually operates. It can balance our production priorities, available capacity, and the specific needs of a job to make better scheduling decisions.

In particular, SkyPlanner helps us with the toughest scheduling jobs: long-term repeat orders, and orders with a wide variety of components. Its capabilities will support our on-time delivery and accommodate more customer demand by identifying open capacity and helping us make better use of available time. 

Using AI to Reduce Administrative Bottlenecks

In addition to production scheduling, we are also developing proprietary AI tools to support our internal processes. Sanni Tiwari, has worked as our AI intern since August, but we recently brought him on full time as our Director of Technology. He is working to build tools that can analyze business information, automate reporting, and reduce repetitive administrative tasks.

First, we’re completing a large language model, which will give us more in-depth analysis of our business and automate reporting in a variety of ways. 

And we’re exploring agents that will help with a range of tasks, including:

• Faster repeat order review: When a customer sends a purchase order through Outlook, an AI agent can compare it against our ERP system to identify repeat parts. If the order includes a new revision, the agent can also check our quoting software to see whether that revision has already been quoted. This can be a particularly helpful tool in our contract manufacturing services.
• More efficient material purchasing: AI agents can identify the materials required for customer orders, then automatically help our account managers begin the process. This helps move purchasing forward while keeping human oversight in place.
• Automated internal purchase orders for metal finishing work: From a customer perspective, All Powder Coat & Screen and All Metals Fabricating operate as part of the same overall team. Internally, however, some jobs require additional purchase orders between the two operations. AI agents can help generate those internal POs automatically, reducing extra administrative steps.

More Time for Customer Support

The goal, to be clear, is never to replace our people. Our systems are designed with human oversight in mind. Team members will continue to review and approve the work. 

Instead, agents like these take repetitive work off our team’s plate so they can spend more time helping customers. Account managers have to spend a significant part of their day entering repeat orders, even though the work is relatively straightforward. These agents can automate parts of that process, freeing up account managers to answer more customer questions and provide more in-depth updates.

The Ultimate Goal: Better Efficiency and Greater Value

At All Metals Fabricating, we are always looking for ways to stay ahead of the curve. Our continued investment in AI and automated manufacturing will create more efficient and responsive operations.

That efficiency directly benefits customers. It helps with better lead times, more consistent communication, and the best possible pricing. And it benefits our team, too, by taking away monotonous tasks and allowing them to focus on solving bigger problems.

Request a quote today to work with a sheet metal fabrication partner committed to using modern technology in service of customer excellence.