TrackFinch
For machine, fab, cabinet and sign shops
TrackFinch is shop floor management software for small shops. Every open job is on every phone, due first at the top. The crew ticks off each step as it's done, so anyone who opens it sees where each job stands. No more walking the floor asking.
How most small shops run the floor
Jobs on the board, a printed job sheet riding along with the parts. That isn’t a mistake. With one shift and 10 jobs, everybody walks past the board 20 times a day and it stays right. It leaks at the same few moments, every week.
Mon 3:30 pm
The board says the 40 spacer plates are at the punch press. They came off it at 1:30 and went to the bench. Nobody wiped it, so the night crew sets the press up for a run that’s already done.
Tue 10:15 am
A customer calls for 6 mounting frames by Friday. You write them at the top. The board doesn’t say what moved down, so nobody notices the 25 gate hinges due Thursday just lost their day in the weld bay.
Wed 1:40 pm
The 8 cabinet boxes are cut and banded. Step 3 is hanging doors: 32 hinges. The bin has 12. The job sheet listed the steps, not what each one needs, so you find out when someone reaches into the bin.
Thu 11:00 am
The truck comes at 2 for 24 yard signs. You walk out to box them and they’re printed but stuck in line for the laminator behind 3 other jobs. The board has said “printing” since Monday.
One shift, under 10 open jobs, everyone working within sight of the board, and the person who writes on it is the person running the floor. If that’s your shop, keep the whiteboard. It’s free and it works.
Add a second shift, or 20 jobs with 3 or 4 steps each, and the board turns into a picture of this morning. That’s the gap TrackFinch fills: every open job on every phone, due first at the top, with its steps and stations, ticked off as the crew does them.
The short answer
Shop floor management software keeps one list of the jobs being made in your shop: what’s next, who has it, which steps are done and what’s late. The crew works from the list, so nobody has to walk the floor asking.
Shop floor control software is the same idea under an older name. Search either one and you also get the bigger kind: a manufacturing execution system (MES), with sensors on the machines. That’s a different tool for a different question.
Where most shops start
This is TrackFinch
The bigger kind
When the question is about the machine, not the job. You run machines unattended and need to know the minute one stops. You want to know how many hours a spindle actually cut this week. A customer contract asks for machine data on every part. Then look at an MES or a monitoring system. TrackFinch isn’t that.
If your question is “where’s that job, and what’s next?”, a list your crew taps answers it, with nothing to wire up.
Try the real screen
This is the screen your crew opens on their phones, with one job on it: 12 shelf brackets, due Thursday, cut at the saw and welded in the weld bay. Tap it through from planned to finished. It takes about ten seconds.
The job moves from planned to in progress and is assigned to you. Anyone who opens the list sees it’s taken.
Cut, then Weld. Each tick strikes the step through and puts its minutes on the work order. No timer to run, no clocking in.
Finish opens the work order. Complete it there: the components come out of stock and the 12 brackets go in. If a step isn’t ticked, it tells you first.
Mine is your jobs plus the ones nobody has taken yet. Everything open is the whole shop. Both put the job due first at the top.
Tap Start to take the job.
Free for the whole crew, no card. It runs in the phone’s browser.
At the desk
Every Start and every tick on the floor lands in one place. Nobody writes a status report: the crew’s taps are the report. Open TrackFinch at the desk and it’s current as of the moment you opened it. Three screens answer the question you used to walk out and ask.
Shop floor
Flip from Mine to Everything open and every job in the shop is on one list, sorted by due date. A job past its due date shows up in red, so you find the late one on Tuesday, not when the truck shows up.
Workstation
Open the weld bay and you get the open work orders that come through it, and every step it runs, part by part. Worth a look before you say yes to a rush job that needs welding.
Work order
Open a job and every step sits next to its planned minutes. Ticked steps are struck through, their minutes add up against the plan, and you see who took the job when they hit Start.
The jobs on this list start as work orders the office opens, each with its steps and stations already on it. Choosing which ones to open and when, from what’s due and what’s short, is production planning.
Stock and parts
The job on your crew’s phones isn’t a copy in a separate app. Here’s one, for 6 mounting frames. It’s the work order the office planned from the bill of materials (the parts and steps for one frame), and it draws on the same stock counts.
Bill of materials
Set up once per part: the components and how many of each, plus the steps with their station and minutes. Those steps are the ones your crew ticks off on the phone.
Work order
Open a work order for 6 frames and it shows what the job needs against what you have on hand. A short part shows in red now, not halfway through the weld. For a part you’re short on, planning works back from the due date: plan a work order to make it, or draft the purchase order to buy it.
Stock
Completing the work order takes the components out of stock and books the 6 frames in. If you track batches, the finished frames go in as one lot you can trace. Your inventory counts follow the work, and nobody types up job sheets at the end of the day.
Nothing to re-key at the end of the day. One record runs from the office to the floor to the shelf, so there’s no second list to keep in step.
Getting started
Mostly an afternoon at the desk. The floor keeps running while you set it up, and the whiteboard can stay on the wall until the phones have caught up with it.
Type them in, or bring over the spreadsheet you already keep as a CSV file: SKU, name, cost and reorder point.
Name your workstations (the saw, the weld bay, the paint booth), then list the steps the product takes, each with its station and minutes. Once per product, not once per job. Give each station an hourly rate and those same minutes price your quotes too.
Pick the product, how many and when it’s due. It goes on the floor list in due-date order, carrying the steps you just set up.
Invite the crew. They open TrackFinch in the phone’s browser, add it to the home screen and tap Shop floor. Nothing to download from an app store.
Nothing. TrackFinch is free: every module, the whole team, no card. The pricing page says the same.
Before you start
You’ve been oversold before. Here’s what TrackFinch doesn’t do, so you know before you set up a single job.
It doesn’t read your machines.
No sensors, no machine run time or uptime numbers. TrackFinch knows a step is done because someone on the crew ticked it.
It shows the floor as of when you open it.
Open it again, or refresh, and every step ticked since is there. Checking the floor means opening a screen, not walking out to ask.
It doesn’t schedule to the minute.
Jobs line up by due date. There’s no drag-and-drop board and no capacity scheduling that books each machine by the hour.
It isn’t a time clock.
No clock-in, no payroll. A ticked step puts its planned minutes on the work order, not the hours someone worked.
It doesn’t plug into other software.
No integrations. Parts come in from a CSV file, and your data goes out as CSV.
When another tool fits better
If your bottleneck is one machine booked to the minute, or you need data off the machines themselves, a monitoring tool or an MES is the better fit. If the question is which job is where and what runs next, that’s what TrackFinch is for.
Straight answers
The crew
Each person opens their own list: the jobs on their name plus the ones nobody has taken yet, due first at the top, with the steps and stations for each. Taking a job is one tap on a big green Start button, and each step is one tick when it’s done. That’s all the crew has to do.
Cost
Nothing. TrackFinch is free: every module, the whole team, no card. You sign up yourself in one step with your name, email and shop, then confirm by email.
Hardware
No. TrackFinch runs in the browser on the phones your crew already carries. Nothing goes on the machines, and there’s nothing to install from an app store.
Setup
Mostly an afternoon at the desk: add your parts (or bring over the spreadsheet you keep as a CSV file), give a product its steps and plan your first work orders. The floor keeps running while you set it up, and the whiteboard can stay on the wall until the phones have caught up with it.
Stock
It knows them. The job on your crew’s phones is the same work order the office planned from the bill of materials, and it shows what the job needs against what’s on hand. Completing it takes the components out of stock and books the finished parts in. The stock itself is counted by rack and bin, with a reorder point on each part: that’s how TrackFinch tracks shop inventory.
Limits
It doesn’t read your machines, schedule to the minute, clock anyone in or plug into other software: parts come in from a CSV file, and your data goes out as CSV. It shows the floor as of when you open it, so open it again or refresh to see every step ticked since. Each one is spelled out in where TrackFinch stops, just above.
Shop floor control is keeping track of the work in progress on your floor: which jobs are out, where each one is, which steps are done and what’s late. A whiteboard does it by hand; shop floor management software like TrackFinch puts it on the crew’s phones, with every open job in order of its due date.
Everything in TrackFinch shares one source of truth — start anywhere, the rest is already connected.
Free shop floor management software. Set up your first job today and the crew opens it on their phones.
Free · Every module · No card needed