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The board / Operating

Plyco cut-to-size

Live · March 2026 Australian timber retailer cts.plyco.com.au plyco.com.au

Cut list in, priced quote out, sent before anyone opens the inbox.

Rails

  • aloneReadsThe cut list, live stock and prices from the ERP.
  • aloneWritesThe ERP sale, the quote PDF and the CNC files.
  • aloneMoneyPrices the job and takes payment.
  • alonePublicSends the quote to the customer itself.
  • aloneUnattendedRuns end to end with nobody watching.
  • a person, on exceptionsDecidesAlone, unless a quote is complex or high-value.

Problem

Cut-to-size quotes took one to three days. The same order was typed three times: the request, the ERP sale, the CNC file. Two people held all the knowledge, and both had better things to do.

The brief was to take the human out of the quote, and bring them back only when a job is complex or the number is big enough to deserve a second look.

System

Cut list, optimise, nest for CNC, price in the ERP, freight, sale and quote PDF, rule check. By default the quote is sent to the customer. Complex or high-value jobs go to staff review first, then to the customer.

Decisions

  1. The default is send. A person sees a quote only when a rule flags it as complex or high value.
  2. Every step is a durable function, 46 of them. A carrier timeout retries instead of losing the quote.
  3. Nesting output goes straight to the machine as DXF and DWG. Nothing is redrawn.
  4. Pricing stays in the ERP. The platform asks; it doesn't copy the rules.
  5. Customers get an edit link and a pay page, so changes don't route back through staff.
  6. Released with semantic-release. Staff read what changed. Nobody is surprised on a Monday.

Results

  • Turnaround<5 minWas 1 to 3 days

    From cut list received to a priced quote. It used to take one to three days.

  • Staff hours saved740 hEstimate, 550 to 930

    About three quarters of a full-time role, in the first six months.

  • No staff edit6 in 10

    Quotes go out with no staff edit. Staff time goes to the complex, higher-value jobs.

  • Customer changes1 in 2

    Half of all quote changes are now made by customers through a self-serve edit link.

First six months: May to October 2026

Stack

Next.js, TypeScript, Postgres (Neon), Inngest, Stripe, Cin7, HubSpot, Playwright