Customer portals, quote generators, shop-floor dashboards, MES integrations. Senior engineer on subscription, $4,999/mo. Delivery in 2 to 4-day cycles.
- Scope
- Ship
- Iterate
monthly subscription
Who this is for
Ops director or plant manager at a $10M to $100M manufacturer running on an aging ERP with spreadsheets filling every gap the ERP left open.
The pain today
- ERP handles finance but leaves shop-floor workflow uncovered
- Quote generation takes days because pricing logic lives in one estimator's head
- Customers call for order status because the ERP has no customer-facing view
- Production data is compiled manually at end-of-shift, already hours stale
- IT headcount is too thin to build and maintain custom tooling
The outcome you get
- Custom manufacturing app delivered on a $4,999/mo subscription
- Customer portal, quote generator, or production dashboard shipped in 8 to 14 weeks
- ERP and MES integration: NetSuite, SAP, Epicor, Infor, common MES platforms
- Shop-floor-friendly interfaces tested on factory tablets and kiosk PCs
- Full code ownership under Work Made for Hire — clean handoff to internal IT when ready
Where manufacturing teams lose the most time
Custom web app development for manufacturing keeps surfacing the same three bottlenecks across mid-size plants. Quote generation — every RFQ crawls because pricing logic is locked in a senior estimator's head, not in code. Order visibility — customers call the office because the ERP has no outward-facing view. Shop-floor reporting — supervisors pull end-of-shift numbers manually and paste them into a spreadsheet that is already outdated by the time management reads it.
These are not ERP problems. The ERP is doing its job. They are workflow gaps that sit just outside what any standard module handles cleanly. A focused custom app built in 8 to 12 weeks can recover dozens of hours per week across the operation — without replacing or disrupting the ERP.
Custom manufacturing app delivered on a $4,999/mo subscription
Common manufacturing apps I build
Customer portals: order status, quote visibility, document access, reorder. Quote generators: pricing logic as running code, spec-sheet upload, PDF output, approval workflow. Production dashboards: near-real-time KPIs from ERP or MES, shift targets, alerts. RFQ intake: structured forms routed to estimators with SLA tracking and a clear audit trail. Quality log apps: defect entry, batch tracking, inspection sign-off. Maintenance ticket systems: equipment-level work orders, parts requests, resolution history. Distributor portals: branded order placement, availability, account-specific pricing.
Each of these maps to a specific ops bottleneck. I do not build generic platforms — I scope the app to one bottleneck, ship it, and expand from there if the ROI justifies it.
45%: Bounce rate reduction after launch.
ERP and MES integration without the year-long project
NetSuite, SAP, Epicor, Infor, Sage — each has a REST or SOAP API, or a middleware option such as Celigo, Boomi, or Jitterbit. Smaller manufacturers on QuickBooks Enterprise or Xero get direct API integration. The pattern is consistent: the custom app reads from and writes to the ERP through an integration layer, and sync patterns are chosen by data-freshness requirement.
MES platforms are a different layer. Where manufacturers run a dedicated MES, I integrate with its data stream rather than bypass it — the app surfaces MES data in a format that operators and managers can actually act on. For plants without a full MES, the custom app can capture production events directly, feeding the ERP in batch or in real time.
Initial ERP integration runs 4 to 8 weeks. Legacy ERPs without modern APIs take longer. I scope that in week one, before any code is written.
Shop-floor apps that work on factory hardware
Office software does not survive the shop floor. Web apps built for manufacturing need to run on rugged tablets — Zebra, Panasonic Toughpad — and on shared kiosk PCs with aging browsers. I build responsive interfaces that work on those devices without a native app, which keeps deployment simple: one URL, no app store, no MDM policy change.
Barcode scanning works through device cameras or USB/Bluetooth scanners. Brief network dropouts are handled with local state buffering. For deeper IoT integration — machine telemetry, PLC data, SCADA feeds — I connect to whatever data stream an OT specialist has already surfaced, rather than own the hardware layer myself.
I worked at bolttech integrating 40+ payment providers across Asia and Europe at a $1B+ unicorn. Complex multi-system integration on tight timelines is familiar territory.
Pricing and how the engagement works
Standard is $4,999/mo. Pro is $5,499/mo. Both include 2 to 4-day delivery cycles, direct daily access to me, and a 14-day money-back guarantee. Cancel anytime. Every line of code is yours under Work Made for Hire.
For a large ERP or MES integration project, Pro is usually the right tier during the integration phase. For steady-state feature work and ongoing iteration, Standard handles it. Hosting runs on AWS or Azure in your account — typically $100 to $1,000/month at manufacturing scale depending on traffic and data volume.
I take one customer at a time, so the engagement is direct: no project manager in the middle, no account executive, just the engineer doing the work.
Case: LAK Embalagens — digital foundation for a B2B manufacturer
LAK Embalagens is a Brazilian B2B packaging manufacturer. When I rebuilt their site, I treated it as a digital showroom: clear product taxonomy, fast-loading catalog, structured spec-sheet templates, and a quote funnel connected directly to the sales team. Bounce rate dropped 45 percent. Search Console impressions tripled. Rankings landed in the top three for core terms.
The structural work — product taxonomy, quote routing, clean data flow between site and sales — is exactly what the deeper app layer extends. A customer portal for a manufacturer like LAK would take the same clarity-first approach and push it into transaction-level workflows: order status, RFQ tracking, document access, pricing visibility. The foundation is the same; the depth changes.
Stack on that engagement: React, Next.js, TypeScript, Tailwind CSS.
When the ERP module is the right answer
Every major ERP ships customer portal modules, e-commerce connectors, and dashboard add-ons. If the module covers 80 percent of the workflow and your IT team can configure it, that beats custom every time. I tell customers that directly in week one.
Custom app development earns its cost when the workflow is too specific for any off-the-shelf module: multi-facility coordination, non-standard quote approval chains, specialty product configuration, or a quality log that maps to a certification requirement the ERP vendor never anticipated. Those gaps are where the hours and dollars leak — and where a focused custom app pays back in months, not years.
Recent proof
A comparable engagement, delivered and documented.
Turned a B2B manufacturer into a digital showroom
Designed and developed a high-performance institutional website to showcase packaging solutions and generate qualified leads.
Read the case studyFrequently asked questions
The questions prospects ask before they book.
For a focused app — a customer portal, a quote generator, or a production dashboard — 8 to 14 weeks from scoping to production. ERP integration adds 4 to 8 weeks on top of that, depending on the ERP and how modern its API is. I scope the timeline in week one before any code starts, so there are no surprises at week ten.
Yes. NetSuite through SuiteTalk REST/SOAP or Celigo. SAP through OData, RFC, or middleware like Boomi or MuleSoft. Epicor and Infor each have integration paths I have mapped before. The integration pattern is always the same: the custom app reads from and writes to the ERP through an integration layer, with sync frequency matched to data-freshness needs.
ERPs own financial and transactional data — orders, invoices, inventory counts. MES platforms own production execution data — shift output, machine status, work orders in progress. A shop-floor dashboard typically needs both. I integrate with each system at its own layer, pulling the right data from each rather than forcing everything through the ERP.
A well-built web app handles most shop-floor use cases without a native install. It runs on Zebra tablets, Panasonic Toughpads, and shared kiosk PCs. Barcode scanning works through camera or USB scanner. Offline tolerance handles brief network dropouts. Native apps add deployment complexity — MDM policies, app-store approvals — that most mid-market manufacturers do not want to manage.
Role-based access is scoped at setup: customers see their own orders and quotes, sales sees all accounts, finance sees pricing and payment status. SSO through Azure AD, Google Workspace, or Okta — most mid-market manufacturers already run Microsoft 365, so Azure AD is the usual default. MFA is enforced for roles with pricing or document access. That work typically takes one week at the start of an engagement.
My subscription starts at $4,999/mo. Off-the-shelf manufacturing tools with customer portals and quoting modules run $500 to $5,000/month, but they charge per seat, per module, and per integration — total cost of ownership climbs fast. Custom builds cost more upfront and pay back when the workflow is specific enough that off-the-shelf covers maybe 60 percent of what you actually need.