What composites shops make and for whom
Composites work spans very different businesses under one name. A marine shop running open-mold fiberglass looks nothing like an aerospace cell laying up carbon prepreg, yet both manage resin, reinforcement, molds and cure. Most are job shops or build-to-print suppliers with many part numbers, modest volumes and customer-owned or shared tooling.
That mix means the ERP has to support configured materials, tooling as a tracked asset, and routings where cure and cool-down matter as much as labor.
Quoting and estimating realities
Composite quotes depend on ply count, material yield, scrap from nesting and trimming, mold or tool cost amortization, cure cycle time and inspection scope. Prepreg is expensive and perishable, so material waste is a margin driver and a poor yield assumption can erase profit on a short run.
Estimators often build quotes in spreadsheets from past jobs. Searching those past jobs by similar layup, tool and part geometry is a good fit for retrieval over your own historical quotes, as long as a person confirms the final number.
- Ply and kit yield, including offcut and trim loss
- Tool build, repair and per-part tool wear
- Autoclave or oven loading and cure cycle occupancy
- NDT, trim and secondary bonding labor
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Composite Part Cost Estimator
Estimate cost per prepreg composite part from material, scrap, layup hours, autoclave time, tooling amortization, consumables and finishing, and see how autoclave loading changes it.
Materials, traceability and ERP fit
Prepreg and many resins have shelf life, freezer storage conditions and out-time limits, so lot traceability, expiry dates and out-time tracking are core needs. Aerospace customers expect each part to trace to material lot, cure record and inspection results.
Shops commonly run JobBOSS, E2, Global Shop Solutions, Epicor Kinetic, Infor SyteLine/CloudSuite Industrial, DELMIAworks or Plex, often supplemented by spreadsheets or a separate quality system for cure records. Confirm lot and expiry handling in your edition before relying on it.
Compliance and data handling
Aerospace and defense composites work can carry ITAR or CUI obligations, and customer specifications are often proprietary. That is a common reason shops cannot send drawings and process documents to a public cloud AI service.
A private deployment on the shop's own hardware keeps documents inside the boundary the customer already approved. Your compliance officer, not the tool, decides whether a given setup meets your obligations.
Where private AI on ERP helps, and where it does not
AI helps with questions across the ERP and document pile: which lots of a prepreg are near expiry, which jobs on a tool ran over standard, or what the customer process spec says about a repair. Read-only natural-language access to ERP data and retrieval over specs and cure records are realistic first projects.
It does not replace process engineering or NADCAP-controlled procedures, and it should never change cure parameters or approve material dispositions. If a vendor's built-in reports already answer the question, use those first.
Frequently asked questions
What does ACMA do for composites manufacturers?
ACMA is the main US trade association for the composites industry. It runs the CAMX event with SAMPE, offers technician certification through its Certified Composites Technician program, publishes industry resources and advocates on regulatory and trade issues affecting members.
What ERP do composites shops use?
It varies with size and sector. Small and mid-size shops often use JobBOSS, E2 or Global Shop Solutions, while larger aerospace suppliers may run Epicor, Infor, DELMIAworks, Plex or SAP. The key checks are lot and expiry tracking, out-time handling and tooling as a tracked asset.
How do composites shops track prepreg shelf life and out-time?
Most track receipt date, lot, freezer location, expiry and accumulated out-time per roll, either in the ERP lot controls or in a dedicated log. Aerospace customers expect that record to tie to each part. The weak point is usually manual out-time entry, so scanning at the freezer door helps.
Can private AI help with composites quoting?
It can find similar past jobs, pull actual yield and cycle data from the ERP and draft a quote summary for an estimator to review. It should not set price on its own, and results are only as good as the cost data your ERP actually holds.