Transforming CNC Steel Workshops with Digital AutomationTransforming CNC Steel Workshops with Digital Automation
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AA Ferro Lanka β€” Precision Stirrup Fabrication

The business
A family CNC steel workshop in Piliyandala, Sri Lanka. They bend custom reinforcement stirrups β€” the steel rings inside every concrete column and beam. A WG-12 CNC bender, accurate to Β±1mm, capable of 1,200 stirrups an hour.
Real business. Real machine. Real customers. Zero digital presence.
Proof - Google Map

BEFORE
Orders taken by phone. Dimensions written on scrap paper.
Every quote calculated by hand, on every call β€” steel weight, cutting length, price per kg.
No record of who paid a deposit and who didn't.
Customers ringing all day to ask "is it ready?"
Steel running out mid-job, discovered at the machine.
Offcut waste on every single bar β€” never once measured.
AFTER
A live, mobile-responsive platform that runs the entire business β€” quoting, ordering, payments, production, delivery, and the owner's daily operations β€” with WhatsApp as the interface, because that's where he actually is.

THE PRODUCT
Public site Home Β· Products Β· Our Story & Team Β· Workshop Gallery Β· Track Order Β· Support Β· Get Quote Β· Customer testimonials from real partner stores
The configurator β€” quote in one second, not one phone call
Shape: rectangular, square, round, custom
Rebar size: 6mm / 8mm / 10mm / 12mm β€” each showing live stock in kg
Dimensions + quantity
Returns exact cutting length, weight per stirrup, total material weight, price per kg, total price and 50% deposit β€” calculated from today's live steel rate, read from the database, never hardcoded
Stock is checked before the price is quoted. An out-of-stock size is hard-blocked. The workshop cannot sell steel it doesn't have.
No account required to get a price.
The collection network 21 real hardware stores pulled from Google Places across the delivery corridor, sorted by distance from the customer's site β€” plus collection at the workshop. Any hardware store can self-register as a partner and become a collection point.
Owner Control Room (secret route β€” not /admin, linked from nowhere)
KPI cards: total orders, awaiting deposit, in production, deposits collected, avg rating
Order pipeline: Pending β†’ Confirmed β†’ In Production β†’ Ready β†’ Delivered, advanced with one tap β€” and every tap messages the customer automatically
Live steel price + stock editing with visual stock bars β€” change the rate, and every quote on the public site is new one second later
Full WhatsApp activity log β€” every message the system ever sent
Lead pipeline: New β†’ Contacted β†’ Quoted β†’ Won β†’ Lost
Hardware business verification (Verify / Unverify)
Hardware store dashboard Its own incoming orders, its own stock, its own price, its own margin, its own QR scanner. 21 drop-off points become 21 sales channels.
Steel supplier dashboard Restocks and re-prices the workshop directly β€” and cannot see one customer, one phone number, one message. That's row-level security, not a hidden button.
Customer portal My Orders + Track Order. Order ID, items, total, deposit status, live production status. Nobody has to phone and ask.
QR delivery verification Every bundle carries a QR tag. The store scans it. Delivery confirmed.

THE AUTOMATIONS β€” 17 live
On order creation
Owner alert β€” WhatsApp + email in seconds, with full spec, deposit and bank slip Customer confirmation β€” order number + exact deposit due Stock deduction β€” steel deducted from inventory automatically Low-stock alert β€” the owner is warned before the machine stops Order sanity check β€” catches a typo before steel is cut. 2500 instead of 250 is 500 stirrups of scrap. It freezes the order. Nobody starts the machine until a human approves. Steel Waste Optimizer β€” see below. This is the one.
Scheduled 7. Deposit chaser β€” 09:30 daily. Chases three times, then escalates to the owner to call. Recovers revenue that used to just vanish. 8. Morning briefing β€” 08:00 daily: new orders, money owed, what's on the machine, what steel to buy 9. Production batching β€” groups the day's jobs by rebar size, so the machine is threaded once, not ten times 10. Steel purchase plan β€” tells the owner exactly what to buy, before he runs short 11. Weekly summary β€” Monday: orders, revenue, steel used 12. Post-delivery follow-up β€” 3 days after delivery. 5 stars route to Google. 1 star routes privately to the owner β€” before it becomes a public review. On status change 13. Status updates β€” Confirmed / In Production / Ready. Kills every "is it ready?" phone call. 14. Ready-for-collection β€” store name, address, Google Maps pin, balance due 15. Honest ready dates β€” a real date from the real production queue, with an automatic warning the moment it slips Inbound 16. Instant lead capture β€” every enquiry auto-replied before it goes cold 17. QR delivery confirmation β€” bundle scanned at the store, order closed Reliability: nothing ever fires twice. Every automation is locked behind an idempotency flag on the order itself. A retry cannot spam a customer. A re-run cannot deduct the same steel twice. And with zero API keys configured, nothing breaks β€” every message queues as a one-tap wa.me link. Value on day one, with no setup.

THREE AI AGENTS ON WHATSAPP
Customer Assistant β€” quotes today's real price from live stock, at midnight on a Sunday. Photograph an engineer's drawing and it reads the stirrup off the page. It can take an order. It can never mark one paid.
Manager Agent β€” the owner's control room, in a chat window. "How much am I owed?" "What's on the machine?" "Make 8mm 290." He speaks; the website changes. It can move a price. It cannot move an order β€” that permission does not exist.
Production Planner β€” the CNC cut-list optimizer. Groups jobs by diameter, calculates bars to load, stirrups per bar, offcut per bar, and warns when the steel runs short before the machine starts

BONUS CRITERIA
βœ… Live and published Β· βœ… Mobile-responsive Β· βœ… Real business, actively using it Β· βœ… Before/after documented Β· βœ… AI Superagent implemented (Γ—3) Β· βœ… Automation demonstrably drives business outcomes (deposit recovery + LKR 8,144 material saving) Β· βœ… Real Google Places data, real partner store network

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