The Problem How It Works Under the Hood Features Team Request a Pilot
Weld torch

Know your true weld
labor cost before
you sign the contract.

Scale Fab reads your engineering drawings and tells you exactly how long a weld job will take — before you strike an arc. No gut feel. No averaged assumptions. No margin surprises.

Request a Pilot See the Problem
Problem

Weld shops are flying
blind on labor costs.

Estimators have been using the same flawed assumptions for decades. The result is predictable — and expensive.

13%
of weld shops miss ship dates because labor estimates were wrong from the start — not because the work was done poorly.
30–45%
is what shops assume for arc-on time. Measured reality is often 10–20%. That gap of 20 or more percentage points eats your margin on every job — and it's baked into every estimate built from industry average tables.
157,000
welders retiring this decade — taking decades of estimating knowledge with them permanently. There is no structured way to capture it before it walks out the door.
Solution

Scale Fab tells you exactly how long
a weld job will take — before you start.

Upload a drawing. Scale Fab reads the geometry, identifies every joint, and returns a precise labor estimate before the contract is signed.

01

Upload Drawing

Drop in your welding drawing from any CAD platform.

02

AI Reads the Drawing

Scale Fab's AI reads weld geometry, joint types, material specs, and process callouts automatically — with no manual data entry required. Every joint classified before you touch it.

03

Real Shop Data Fills the Gaps

Live measurements from your welding machines replace the assumptions that kill your margins — capturing actual arc-on time, purge, fit-up, and QA instead of guessing.

04

Receive Your Estimate

Get a precise, itemized labor estimate broken down by weld ID, process, and sequence — ready to drop straight into your bid and defend every line item.

No gut feel. No averaged assumptions. No margin surprises.
Under the Hood

From Drawing to
Estimate in
Seconds

Scale Fab extracts structured data directly from your spool drawings — reading every weld ID, material callout, and joint type automatically.

IC-001-SPOOL.pdf — Spool Drawing Rev A
A B 1189mm C 797mm D E BILL OF MATERIAL Num Len Size Sch Description 1 1189mm 100 SCH40 PIPE, SMLS — A106-B 2 797mm 100 SCH40 PIPE, SMLS — A106-B 3 1 80 150# SCH40 FLANGE, WN, RF — A105N 4 1 80 150# SCH40 FLANGE, WN, RF — A105N 5 1 100 ELL, 90°, BW, LR — A234-WPB 6 1 100 ELL, 90°, BW, LR — A234-WPB 7 1 100x80 REDUCER, BW CONC — A234-WPB WELD COUNT Num Size Sch Type 1 80mm STD Butt Weld 4 100mm STD Butt Weld 5 WELDS DETECTED IC-001-SPOOL   REV A   SCH 40
Analyzing... 5 welds found
What Scale Fab Read From This Drawing
Drawing IC-001-SPOOL.pdf
Welds detected 5  (A · B · C · D · E)
Butt welds — 100mm 5
Butt welds — 80mm 1
Pipe material A106-B  SCH 40
Fitting material A234-WPB
Actual arc-on time 21%  (measured) vs 38% assumed
14.2
Estimated Weld Labor Hours Includes fit-up, purge & QA time
Capabilities

Built for the shop floor
and the bid room.

Every feature was designed with estimators, project engineers, and shop managers in mind.

Drawing Intelligence

Reads Any Weld Symbol

AI recognizes groove, fillet, butt, and every joint configuration from AWS A2.4 and ISO 2553 standards — automatically, on every drawing you upload.

Process Modeling

Process-Aware Labor Rates

Rates calculated by process — SMAW, GMAW, GTAW, SAW, FCAW — factoring deposition rates, electrode efficiency, and interpass time. Not one blended average for everything.

Live Machine Data

Real Arc-On Time — Not Guesses

Measured arc-on time from your machines replaces the assumption that has been quietly destroying margins across the industry for decades.

Bid Integration

Export Anywhere

Push itemized estimates to Excel, your ERP, or quoting software via API with configurable rates and markup — no re-keying.

Continuous Learning

Accuracy That Compounds Over Time

Every job Scale Fab processes makes the next estimate tighter. The system learns your shop — your welders, your processes, your actual throughput — and gets more accurate with every spool you run.

Full Audit Trail

Every Assumption Explained

Every detected joint, standard, and calculation is visible and traceable to a drawing reference. Estimators can review, override, and defend every number — nothing is a black box.

Why Now

The technology is ready.
The urgency is real.

Two forces have converged to make this the exact right moment to solve estimating — for good.

Machine Learning Is Ready

The Models Work

  • AI models now extract meaningful patterns from weld geometry and process specs at production quality
  • AI cameras and live machine data feed the system in real time — no manual input required
  • The system gets smarter with every job it processes, compounding accuracy across your entire job history
The Knowledge Crisis

The Clock Is Running

  • 157,000 welders are retiring over the next decade, taking informal estimating rules with them permanently
  • Shops have no structured way to capture that knowledge before it walks out the door
  • Scale Fab is the system that captures it — and makes it available to every estimator in your shop
Team

Built by someone who's
already done this.

Domain expertise and technical foundation built together from day one. This is not a software team that stumbled into welding.

Tony Flores, Founder
Tony
Flores
Founder
  • Two internships at SpaceX, working directly in high-stakes weld production environments
  • Built a model at SpaceX that was roughly 90% more accurate than junior engineers — and matched or exceeded the most experienced senior engineers on the team — using only basic weld dimensions as input. Scale Fab extends that foundation with richer data and a continuous feedback loop.
  • The key finding: the limiting factor in estimating accuracy is not the skill of the estimator — it's the absence of a systematic method for learning from actual job outcomes. Scale Fab is that method.
  • Prior experience at Halliburton in high-stakes industrial environments — understands how estimating decisions get made and where they go wrong
SpaceX Halliburton HCSS
Where This Goes

Estimation is the entry point.
The destination is much larger.

Scale Fab starts by solving the problem every shop feels right now. What it becomes is something the entire industry will depend on.

Phase 1 — Now

Estimation

  • Know exactly how long any weld job takes before it starts
  • Eliminate margin surprises at the bid stage, permanently
  • Replace gut-feel assumptions with data on every quote you submit — and defend every line item if a customer pushes back
Phase 2 — AI Foreman

Production Intelligence

  • Use accumulated shop data to place and manage welders at optimal efficiency
  • Flag rework risk in real time before it becomes a schedule problem — while there's still time to intervene
  • Scale what a great production manager does — consistently, at machine speed, on every shift
The Math

An 8% improvement in estimate accuracy
on a $20M backlog recovers
$1.6M in margin per year.

Without adding a single welder. Without winning a single new job. Without changing your production process. Just by knowing what jobs actually cost before you sign them.

Request a Pilot
Get Started

Stop leaving margin
on the table.

We're looking for a handful of shops to join the Scale Fab pilot. We embed on-site, set up AI tracking on your floor, and show you what accurate estimates actually look like — compared side by side with what you're submitting today.

See the Problem First