I grew up in a machine shop

I officially started in my father's shop at 18. Four CNC machines, two lathes and two 4-axis mills, five of us at most. No system anywhere. There was no whiteboard, nothing written down. The jobs, the prices, the material, everything lived inside his head.

The first part I ever programmed myself, he was out of town and the customer needed it urgent. I had barely programmed anything. I found one mistake after another, running between the office and the machine, and somewhere in there I had my first small crash. I got the part done. That is how I have learned everything since: figure it out, then do it.

After 5 years my father started another company and the whole shop moved into my head. I did RFQs, quoting, programming, ordering, shipping and invoicing, with no business training at all. I had never quoted a job. I found an old job that looked similar and guessed the price from there. Every late material delivery was a surprise.

I kept the shop afloat for 5 years. It survived. I was exhausted, underpaid and burned out when I finally told him I could not do it anymore, and he had to come back. The shop still exists today.

The part that stayed with me: there were never any systems or documentation. Not when he ran it, not when I did. Everything important lived inside one person's head, first his, then mine.

I thought that was a small-shop problem. Then I worked in two more factories. One had a drawing archive with multiple versions of the same part and nobody knew which one to cut. One has 20 machines, a morning meeting in a room full of whiteboards, and every department keeping its own Excel sheet. The bigger the shop, the bigger the version of the same problem.

At that last shop I also redesigned our fixturing. The old way ran one part per cycle at 15 minutes. My fixture runs 3 parts start to finish in one 20 minute cycle. Same machines, same parts, 2.25 times the output. Efficiency like that comes from setups, not from working faster.

I realized that systemizing your shop and having good documentation should not have to be this hard. That is the whole reason Taktware exists. One system, RFQ to invoice, built by someone who runs the machines it schedules.

I still machine all day. Then I go home, eat dinner with my family, put two small boys to bed, and build the software I wish my father's shop had. One day I intend to open my own shop. Taktware will be running it.

If any of this sounds like your shop, try the 14-day trial. No card, no implementation project. Or write me directly, I answer every email myself.