# AI for E2 Shop System in Metal Fabrication: Quote History, Material Yield and Delivery Risk > Source: https://netray.co/erp-ai/e2-shop-ai-metal-fabrication > Publisher: Netray (netray.co), AI and integration engineering for ERP and manufacturing systems. > Section: AI for ERP ## Short answer AI for an E2 Shop System metal fabricator reads the shop's estimates, orders, jobs, material usage and shipping history so estimators and managers can ask questions like which sheet-metal jobs lost money to scrap or outside finishing. It runs read-only on your network, shows the query for every answer, and keeps customer drawings and pricing off public AI services. ## Kind industry ## Erp Family other ## Erp Products - E2 Shop System - ECI E2 ## Industries - Metal Fabrication - Sheet Metal - Welding ## Region Global ## Persona Operations Manager ## Eyebrow E2 Shop System + metal fabrication ## Intro Metal fabrication is a business of thin margins and volatile inputs. A shop running laser or turret cutting, press brakes, welding and powder coat on E2 Shop System is quoting steel, stainless and aluminum whose price moves between the quote and the purchase, then routing the job through several departments and often an outside finisher. Getting any one of those wrong can erase the margin. E2 records a great deal that bears on this: the estimate with its material, labor and outside service lines, the job's actual material issues and time by operation, and the delivery history by customer. But the useful questions cross those records. Did the nest yield we assumed in the quote hold up? Which customers' welded assemblies run over on fit-up? Are powder coat vendors the reason jobs miss their dates? Fabricators also hold drawings and designs that customers consider proprietary, and some supply defense or energy customers with strict handling rules. Uploading job histories to a public AI tool is a nonstarter for them, so the practical route is a model running on equipment the shop owns. This page covers what private AI on E2 looks like in a fabrication shop: the records it uses, the use cases that tend to pay back first, where E2's own features and your nesting software already do the job, and what to ask before connecting anything to a live database. ## Pain Points ### Material price moves between quote and purchase **Detail:** Steel and stainless pricing and surcharges change quickly. Quotes built on last quarter's price per pound or sheet leave margin on the table, and it is hard to see after the fact which jobs were hit hardest. ### Nest yield assumptions are rarely checked **Detail:** Estimates assume a material utilization, but actual consumption depends on nesting, remnants and scrap. Comparing assumed to actual across hundreds of jobs is tedious, so the assumption stays wrong. ### Multi-department routings hide bottlenecks **Detail:** A job flows through cutting, forming, welding, finishing and shipping. Delays accumulate between departments, and the real constraint, often welding capacity or outside coating, is argued about rather than measured. ### Outside services decide delivery dates **Detail:** Powder coat, plating, galvanizing and heat treat vendors control the last leg of many jobs. Late returns are noticed when the customer calls. ### Estimating is a specialist skill held by few people **Detail:** Reading a drawing and turning it into material, cut time, bends, weld inches and finish is learned over years. When the senior estimator is busy, quotes slow down or get less careful. ## Use Cases ### Quoted versus actual material yield **Description:** The assistant compares assumed material utilization and cost on estimates to the actual material issued to the job, by material type and customer, and highlights where the quoting assumption is consistently off. **Erp Objects:** Estimates, estimate material lines, job materials, inventory issues, purchase receipts **Outcome:** Lets the shop correct yield assumptions with evidence, which tends to tighten quotes on high-volume sheet and plate work. ### Similar-job estimate lookup **Description:** An estimator describes a new part by material, thickness, size, bends, weld length and finish and gets back comparable past estimates and the jobs they became, with actual hours by department. **Erp Objects:** Estimates, jobs, job operations, labor and time records, customers **Outcome:** Speeds up quoting and gives less experienced estimators the history a senior estimator would draw on. ### Department bottleneck view **Description:** The assistant measures queue time and completed operations by work center, and says in plain English which department held up the most jobs last month and on which part families. **Erp Objects:** Job operations, work centers, scheduled and completed dates, labor records **Outcome:** Replaces opinion about the bottleneck with a measured answer to inform overtime, hiring or outsourcing decisions. ### Outside finishing tracker **Description:** Open outside service purchase orders past promise date are listed with the affected jobs and customer due dates, with a drafted follow-up to the vendor for the buyer to approve. **Erp Objects:** Purchase orders, outside service operations, vendors, job due dates **Outcome:** Moves outside-vendor chasing from a daily manual check to an exception queue. ### Surcharge and price-change impact review **Description:** After a material price change, the assistant lists open quotes and orders whose margin is most exposed, based on the material cost recorded on each. **Erp Objects:** Open estimates, sales orders, material items, vendor price history, purchase orders **Outcome:** Gives management a quick list of quotes to reprice or confirm before accepting orders at old prices. ### Weld and fabrication job cost review **Description:** For a completed welded assembly, the assistant summarizes hours by operation against the estimate, rework and consumables, and flags where fit-up or fixturing time ran long. **Erp Objects:** Job cost, labor tickets, job notes, rework or NCR records, material issues **Outcome:** Makes post-job reviews quick enough to actually happen and feeds lessons back into the next estimate. ### Customer delivery and order status answers **Description:** Customer service asks where an order is, what is left to do and when it will ship, and gets an answer from live job status rather than calling the floor. **Erp Objects:** Sales orders, jobs, completed operations, shipping records **Outcome:** Reduces interruptions to shop supervisors and gives customers consistent answers. ## Architecture **Overview:** The AI layer reads E2 data through a read-only database account or scheduled export on your network, maps it to fabrication terms, and returns answers with the underlying query visible. Anything that would change a record is a draft for a person to approve. **Layers:** #### E2 data access **Detail:** Read-only access to the E2 database, typically Microsoft SQL Server in current versions, or to scheduled exports, using a dedicated account without write permission. Table and view details are confirmed per version. #### Semantic layer **Detail:** Maps estimates, jobs, operations, materials and work centers to fabrication vocabulary such as nest, remnant, bend, weld and outside process, including custom fields. #### Model serving **Detail:** An open-weight model served with Ollama or vLLM on a workstation-class GPU or small server on the shop network. #### Retrieval and agents **Detail:** Structured queries for numbers, with optional retrieval over job notes, quality records and attached customer specifications. Agents draft vendor follow-ups and estimate comparisons for approval. #### Governance and audit **Detail:** Per-user logging of questions, generated queries and answers, with customer or job exclusions where required. ## Deployment Options ### On-premises in the shop **Fit:** Fabricators with a local E2 server and customers who prohibit cloud AI on their drawings. **Detail:** Model and connector run on the same network with no outbound path for ERP data. ### Private cloud tenant **Fit:** Shops with E2 hosted in an environment they control by contract. **Detail:** A dedicated tenant next to the database with restricted egress and no shared AI services. ### Hybrid with replica **Fit:** Multi-plant fabricators or shops that want analysis kept off the production server. **Detail:** A replica or export feeds the AI layer so daily operations are not slowed and each plant's data can stay local. ## Compliance ### A model on infrastructure the shop controls means drawings, part numbers and pricing are not sent to a third-party AI provider. The shop can demonstrate the network path to its customers. **Framework:** Customer NDAs and proprietary drawings ### Where the shop records welder qualifications, WPS references and inspection results, the assistant can retrieve them for a job on request. It reports what is recorded and does not certify compliance. **Framework:** AWS D1.1 and ISO 3834 weld quality records ### Answers cite source records, and suggested process changes go through the existing document control procedure rather than being applied automatically. **Framework:** EN 1090 and ISO 9001 documentation ### Controlled jobs can be excluded from retrieval, or the whole system kept inside an environment limited to authorized persons on shop-owned hardware. **Framework:** ITAR for controlled defense work ## Integration Notes - Use a dedicated read-only SQL login for the E2 database; avoid sharing the application's own credentials. - Identify custom fields and material codes early, since fabricators often encode thickness, grade and finish in item numbers or user-defined fields. - Nesting software such as SigmaNEST or Lantek keeps its own yield data; joining it to E2 is possible through exports and is an optional second phase. - Indexed documents such as drawings and certs should come from approved folders only and respect the user's role. - Use a replica or off-hours export if the E2 server is also running file services or other heavy workloads. - No automatic write-back: vendor emails, price review lists and estimate comparisons are drafts that a named person approves. ## Product Fit ### ERPray **Why:** Plain-English questions and dashboards over E2 estimates, jobs and material data, read-only and with the query shown. ### Custom build **Why:** Useful where the shop wants nesting software yield data joined to E2, or an estimate-assistant tuned to its own pricing method. ## Engagement ### Discovery **Duration:** 1-2 weeks **Deliverables:** - E2 version and custom field inventory - Ranked questions from estimating, operations and customer service - Data access and deployment recommendation - Exclusion list for sensitive customers ### Pilot **Duration:** 4-6 weeks **Deliverables:** - Read-only connector to production or a replica - Yield comparison and similar-job lookup live for estimators - Accuracy validation against known jobs - Logging reviewed with management ### Production **Duration:** 3-4 weeks **Deliverables:** - Department bottleneck view and outside finishing tracker rolled out - Role-based access - Backup plan for the AI server - Admin runbook ### Improve **Duration:** Ongoing **Deliverables:** - Price-change exposure review after material swings - Nesting data join if wanted - Model updates - Quarterly review of usage and accuracy ## Buyer Questions - Is the database account read-only, and which tables can it see? - Where does the model run, and how can we verify no drawing or pricing data leaves the network? - How are material codes and custom fields mapped so a question about 14 gauge stainless resolves correctly? - Can we see the past estimates and jobs behind a yield or hours suggestion? - Will queries affect shop performance during the day? - Which questions would our nesting software or E2's own reports already answer better? - What do we keep if we end the engagement? - Can we start with read-only answers before any drafting agents? ## Faq ### Can AI make metal fabrication quotes more accurate in E2? **Answer:** It can show the evidence faster. The assistant compares assumed material yield and hours to actual results on past jobs and finds similar parts, so an estimator can adjust. It does not read drawings or price jobs on its own in this setup, and accuracy depends on how consistently jobs were closed out in E2. ### Does it replace our nesting software? **Answer:** No. Nesting remains in SigmaNEST, Lantek or whatever you use. The AI layer compares the yield assumed in the estimate to what E2 shows was consumed, and can optionally pull nesting exports in to explain differences. ### Is our customer data sent to a public AI service? **Answer:** No. An open-weight model runs on a server you own or a private tenant, and the connector has no route to public AI APIs. That position is what most customer NDAs require, and you can verify the network path. ### Can it help with material price swings? **Answer:** Yes, as a review tool. After a price change it lists open quotes and orders whose margin is most exposed based on the material cost recorded. Repricing decisions stay with your team, and it only knows the prices recorded in E2. ### What about welding quality records? **Answer:** If your shop records welder qualifications, WPS references and inspection results in E2 or attached files, the assistant can retrieve them for a given job. It reports what is recorded and does not certify compliance with AWS D1.1 or ISO 3834. ### Will it write to E2? **Answer:** Not by default. It is read-only. It drafts vendor follow-ups, estimate comparisons and price review lists for a named person to approve, and anything entered into E2 goes through your normal process. ### How long to get started? **Answer:** A pilot with yield comparison and similar-job lookup can typically be running in one to two months, depending on data access approvals and how clean the job close-out data is. A wider rollout follows once users trust the answers. ## Search terms E2 Shop System AI, AI for E2 Shop System, metal fabrication ERP AI, sheet metal ERP software AI, E2 Shop estimating, fabrication shop quoting AI, ECI E2 reporting, private AI metal fabricator, nesting yield analysis ERP, E2 Shop job costing, welding shop ERP AI, on-prem AI fabrication --- Talk to an engineer: https://netray.co/contact?intent=erp_ai | Machine catalog: https://netray.co/agent/catalog.json