Completing the Digital Fabrication Stack

Executive Summary

The fabrication software stack has matured in estimating, detailing, scheduling, procurement, and reporting. The remaining structural gap is execution validation at the workstation.

This is not incremental tooling. It is the next infrastructure layer: connecting digital intent to verifiable physical outcomes and returning clean feedback data upstream.

Why Execution Control Is Inevitable

• ›In complex industries, digitization consistently expands from planning into execution — fabrication is following this pattern.
• ›Steel cuts and bends are irreversible. Preventing errors is structurally cheaper than correcting them.
• ›Tightening margins and inconsistent labor make unchecked execution variance a direct financial risk.
• ›Without execution confirmation, planning-only digital threads remain probabilistic — assumptions, not outcomes.

From Theory to Field Evidence

Execution validation claims become defensible when a facility measures real jobs against a documented baseline. Today the public narrative is intentionally limited to modeled baselines and transparent measurement design, not claimed fleet-wide deployment proof.

The collection approach is designed so checklist steps, operator confirmations, and deviations can be logged once deployments are live. Until then, pricing and value framing should stay anchored to published baselines and clearly labeled assumptions.

• ›One facility running real jobs would produce more defensible evidence than any theoretical proof.
• ›Baseline-to-actual comparisons should be logged from production workflows, not inferred from self-reported estimates.
• ›Each live facility can strengthen the evidence base and tighten future pricing assumptions.
• ›Until customer evidence exists, public claims should stay explicitly modeled and assumption-led.

Strategic Implications for ERP & Detailing Leaders

EBITDA Uplift Framing (Representative Mid-Size Fabricator)

Illustrative assumptions: $40M revenue, 8% EBITDA margin, 25,000 tons annual throughput, $850/ton steel cost, 8% baseline scrap.

EBITDA moves from approximately $3.2M to $3.775M (8.0% → 9.4% margin), or ~17–18% EBITDA uplift.

SaaS Pricing Capture Strategy (Value Extraction Range)

Based on ~$575k annual customer EBITDA uplift, sustainable early capture is typically 8–15% of created value — enough to maintain adoption momentum and procurement fit.

Practical band for most facilities: $60k–$75k/year once pilot proof is established.

Per-Bench Unit Economics: Land and Expand

Revenue per station scales with the customer's own investment in capture accuracy. Each bench starts with a base subscription and one reference camera. As teams add context cameras and LiDAR devices, per-bench ARPU expands without requiring new contracts or tier changes.

At Production tier ($3,200/bench/mo), the same device expansion pattern yields $3,400 → $4,050/bench/mo. Device add-ons are identical across tiers — customers pay for accuracy, not for permission.

Each additional device adds capture data that strengthens the calibration moat. The more devices a customer deploys, the more defensible their accuracy advantage — and the stickier the subscription.

5-Year Investor ARR Ramp (Base Case)

Model assumes $70k ACV per facility, early churn moderation, and expanding net revenue retention as execution workflows embed into daily operations.

Illustrative Year-5 valuation bands at ARR multiples: 6× = $194M, 8× = $259M, 10× = $324M, 12× = $389M.

Sensitivity: Scrap Improvement vs EBITDA

Illustrative ranges; final results depend on facility mix, throughput, workforce patterns, and baseline discipline.

Board-Level Conclusion

Execution validation is margin-expansion infrastructure, not optional tooling. It improves cost structure, throughput predictability, compliance traceability, and planning accuracy simultaneously.

The remaining gap is not algorithmic — it is deployment. Value compounds with each facility that goes live, each job that generates field evidence, and each baseline model that gets tightened through measured operating results.

The strategic question is not whether execution digitizes. It is who owns the execution layer that anchors the rest of the fabrication stack — and who will turn deployment into defensible field evidence first.