For precision manufacturers, nothing stings quite like discovering that your most time-intensive jobs are actually bleeding money. Yet for most machine shops and fabrication businesses, true job-level profitability remains frustratingly opaque, a figure calculated weeks after the work is shipped, when it’s far too late to course-correct.

Paul Bland, Managing Director of Gloucestershire’s Machining Centre (GMC), knows this pain intimately. “As GMC has grown, it had become harder for me to have such a keen view on components to see if those parts were profitable or not,” he explains. Like many manufacturers scaling from a tight-knit operation to a more complex business, Paul found himself flying blind, making critical pricing and capacity decisions without the granular data needed to optimise margins.

The good news? GMC’s transformation proves that achieving part-level cost visibility isn’t a multi-year odyssey. With the right Manufacturing Execution System (MES), manufacturers can move from profit guesswork to margin certainty in under 90 days, and they can understand exactly what this transformation will cost before making any commitment.

The Hidden Cost of Production Invisibility

GMC’s challenges mirror those of countless mid-market manufacturers. According to recent industry research, operational visibility remains one of the most pressing challenges facing precision manufacturers today. As the company expanded its operations to meet growing demand, three critical operational barriers emerged:

Limited Visibility Across Production. Without real-time job tracking, projects could stall or exceed budgets without anyone noticing until it was too late. Information on job status was scattered across spreadsheets, whiteboards, and tribal knowledge, slowing decision-making and creating uncertainty for both planners and shop floor teams. When a customer calls asking about their order status, the scramble to gather accurate information wastes time and damages credibility.

Lack of Job-Level Profitability Insights. GMC couldn’t accurately see where profit was gained or lost. Costs at the part level were difficult to calculate, making it nearly impossible to optimise pricing or resource use. Were they quoting high-margin work competitively enough to win bids? Were they inadvertently accepting low-margin jobs that consumed disproportionate resources? Without data, these questions remained unanswered.

Capacity Constraints Despite Growth. Despite strong market demand, increasing output without adding headcount or machines seemed impossible. Scheduling was reactive rather than proactive, and the shop floor was operating near capacity with no clear pathway to scaling efficiently. The frustration of turning away profitable work simply because you can’t see where capacity truly exists is a profitability killer.

These aren’t isolated challenges. They’re the predictable consequence of growth outpacing operational infrastructure, a pattern repeated across engineering, automotive, aerospace, and precision manufacturing sectors.

The 90-Day Transformation: What Changed at GMC

GMC turned to TotalControlPro and the DynamxMFG platform to regain control over their operations. What set this solution apart was its rapid deployment and built-for-manufacturers architecture. By applying proven lean manufacturing principles to their implementation approach, TotalControlPro’s team mapped GMC’s existing processes, configured the system to fit their specific workflows, and went live in under 90 days, delivering time-to-benefit faster than traditional ERP or MRP implementations.

The results speak for themselves. Within the first year of operation, GMC achieved transformative improvements across three critical areas.

Profitability at Every Job Level

DynamxMFG captures enriched data across the entire job lifecycle, from initial quote through to final dispatch. GMC can now calculate true costs per job and per part, identify high-margin work worth pursuing aggressively, and eliminate process waste that was previously invisible.
This granular cost visibility has unlocked smarter quoting strategies. Instead of applying standard markup percentages across all work, GMC can now price jobs based on actual resource consumption, machine time, and material costs. They’re winning more profitable bids whilst gracefully declining work that doesn’t meet their margin thresholds.
More importantly, the system reveals which processes are inefficient and need improvement. When you can see that a particular setup is consuming twice the expected machine time, you can address the root cause, whether that’s tooling issues, operator training needs, or scheduling inefficiencies.

Real-Time Job and Part Tracking

GMC now benefits from minute-level, part-specific production visibility. Jobs are tracked from CAD design through machining to dispatch, with live updates available to planners and operators alike. Team leaders are empowered to make data-driven decisions in real time, meaning no more guesswork.
A CNC operator at GMC notes the transformation: “The information that is available on the shop floor makes it easier to understand who is doing what and what stage jobs are at. There is a lot less paperwork on the shop floor which is great, as we are no longer fumbling around to find the right sheet for each job. Everything is straight to the point on the system in front of you.”
This visibility eliminates the production black box. When management can see exactly where every job sits in the production queue, they can manage by exception, addressing bottlenecks proactively rather than discovering problems after they’ve caused delays.

Maximising Output Without Adding Headcount

Perhaps the most impressive outcome: GMC has seen an uplift in production output with the same team and equipment setup. How? By addressing the hidden capacity killers that plague most manufacturers. Machine and operator utilisation have increased through smart scheduling and bottleneck visibility. When you can see that Machine 3 is idle whilst Machine 7 is overloaded, you can rebalance work intelligently. On-time delivery rates have improved due to optimised resource planning and proactive production oversight. GMC achieved a 40% increase in capacity and improved on-time delivery, all without expanding their physical footprint or workforce. The system enabled them to scale production without scaling headcount, a transformation that dramatically improved profitability per employee.

The Financial Reality: What Does This Transformation Actually Cost?

Here’s where most MES software providers retreat behind the dreaded “contact sales for pricing” wall. This opacity is precisely what frustrates manufacturers who need to build business cases and secure stakeholder buy-in before starting lengthy sales processes.
The truth is, MES pricing varies based on several concrete factors: the number of users who need system access, whether you operate single or multiple locations, the complexity of your production processes, and what integrations you require with existing systems like ERP, CAD, or quality management software.
For a precision manufacturer like GMC, typically operating with 20-50 production staff, one location, and moderate integration requirements, investment typically ranges from £200 to £600 per user per month, depending on the specific feature set and level of sophistication required. Studies show that MES implementations can deliver efficiency increases of 10-20% and defect reductions of up to 40%, making the business case compelling for most operations.
But here’s what makes DynamxMFG different: you don’t need to book a sales call just to understand what this would cost for your specific operation. The Pricing Estimator provides transparent, immediate cost projections based on your business parameters. No obligation, no sales pressure, just honest numbers that help you make informed decisions.

The Implementation Roadmap: What to Expect in Your First 90 Days

GMC’s experience illustrates why the investment pays for itself quickly. Within the first 12 months:
Reduced idle inventory and delays. When you know exactly where every job stands, work-in-progress costs plummet. Material sits in inventory for days rather than weeks, improving cash flow.
Increased throughput. The 40% capacity improvement means GMC can accept more profitable work without capital expenditure on new equipment. That’s pure margin expansion.
Labour efficiency gains. When operators spend less time hunting for job sheets and more time running machines, labour productivity increases dramatically. GMC recovered 10,000 hours of lost production time, equivalent to five full-time employees’ annual output.
Higher-margin work identification. By understanding true costs, GMC can pursue and win the jobs that genuinely move the profitability needle whilst declining work that looks attractive on the surface but delivers poor returns.
Over the first 12 months, the gains in efficiency and throughput significantly outweighed the system investment. This isn’t a three-to-five-year payback, it’s a return within the first annual cycle.
If you’re considering a similar transformation, understanding the implementation timeline helps set realistic expectations. Following industry standards for MES deployment, here’s what the journey looks like:

Days 1-30: Discovery and Configuration

The implementation team works with your staff to map current processes, identify pain points, and configure the system to match your workflows. This isn’t about forcing your operation to conform to rigid software, it’s about moulding the platform to support how you actually work.
During this phase, you’ll define which data points matter most for your profitability calculations, establish user access levels, and set up integrations with existing systems where necessary.

Days 31-60: Training and Testing

Your team begins hands-on training with the configured system in a test environment. Operators learn the shop floor interface, planners master the scheduling tools, and management explores the reporting dashboards.
This parallel running allows you to iron out any workflow quirks before going live. It’s also when team members start seeing the benefits first hand, building buy-in and enthusiasm for the change.

Days 61-90: Go-Live and Optimisation

The system goes live on your production floor. Initial support is intensive, with the implementation team on hand to address questions and refine processes. As data begins flowing through the system, you’ll start seeing the real-time visibility that transforms decision-making.
By day 90, most manufacturers are operationally live and beginning to extract actionable insights from their production data. The platform is working, users are confident, and the ROI clock has started.

Beyond 90 Days: Continuous Improvement

This is where the real magic happens. With three months of production data accumulated, you can identify trends, spot inefficiencies that weren’t previously visible, and make evidence-based decisions about process improvements, capacity expansion, and strategic investments.
GMC’s experience demonstrates that the benefits compound over time. The more data you capture, the smarter your decisions become, creating a virtuous cycle of continuous operational improvement.

Making the Business Case: Securing Stakeholder Buy-In

For many manufacturers, the operational case for an MES is crystal clear, but securing budget approval requires translating operational improvements into financial terms that resonate with ownership or financial decision-makers. Manufacturing productiv ity research consistently demonstrates that operational visibility investments deliver measurable returns across efficiency, quality, and throughput metrics.

Building Your Business Case

Start with the pain points that have clear cost implications. Calculate the annual cost of late deliveries in terms of expedited shipping, customer dissatisfaction, and lost repeat business. Estimate the carrying cost of excess work-in-progress inventory. Quantify the labour hours currently spent manually tracking jobs, chasing information, and managing scheduling crises.
Then project the improvements based on industry benchmarks and case study results. A 15% improvement in labour efficiency, a 20% reduction in late deliveries, and a 10% decrease in inventory carrying costs translate directly to bottom-line impact that financial stakeholders understand.
Finally, present transparent pricing. This is where having access to a Pricing Estimator becomes invaluable. Rather than presenting a vague “contact sales for pricing” placeholder, you can include concrete investment figures in your business case, making it immediately actionable.

Addressing Common Objections

“Our ERP already does this.” Not at the granular level required for true job-level profitability. ERP systems excel at financial transactions and inventory management, but they lack the real-time, operation-level data capture that drives margin optimisation.
“We’re too busy to implement new software.” The 90-day timeline means disruption is contained and manageable. More importantly, the ongoing cost of operating without visibility far exceeds the short-term implementation effort.
“We’re planning to upgrade our ERP soon.” Perfect. A modern MES integrates with your ERP, feeding it richer, more accurate data. They’re complementary systems, not competitors.

Your Next Step: Get Transparent Pricing Now

GMC’s transformation from profit guesswork to margin certainty demonstrates what’s possible when manufacturers commit to operational visibility. The journey from scattered information to part-level cost clarity doesn’t require years of disruption or millions in capital investment.
What it does require is taking the first step, and that step should never be a blind leap into an opaque sales process.
Use the Pricing Estimator to see exactly what this transformation would cost for your operation. Input your number of users, production complexity, and integration requirements, and receive an immediate, no-obligation cost projection. No sales call required, no pressure tactics, just transparent pricing that respects your time and intelligence.
For precision manufacturers operating with 20-50 staff, single-location operations, and moderate integration needs, expect investment in the range of £200-£600 per user per month. Your specific figure depends on your unique requirements, which the Pricing Estimator accounts for.
The question isn’t whether you can afford to gain job-level profitability visibility. The real question is whether you can afford to continue operating without it. Every day spent pricing jobs based on guesswork rather than data is a day you’re potentially eroding margins, accepting unprofitable work, and missing opportunities to optimise your most valuable resource, your production capacity.
 

Get your transparent cost estimate now. See what job-level profitability would cost for your operation, then decide if the ROI makes sense for your business. No commitment required, just clarity.

Because in manufacturing, as GMC proved, knowledge isn’t just power. It’s profit.