Woodworking shops need scheduling, not project management
You run a woodworking shop. Custom cabinets, furniture, millwork, architectural panels. Every job moves through a sequence of machines: table saw, jointer, planer, CNC router, edge bander, sander, finishing booth.
The schedule is probably on a whiteboard. Or in a spreadsheet. Or in your head. It works until it doesn’t. A custom order needs the CNC router at the same time as two other jobs. The finishing booth is backed up because sanding fell behind. You’re out of the right sheet goods and didn’t know until the operator went to the rack.
Machestra puts your whole woodworking shop on one screen. Every machine, every job, every deadline. One look and you know the state of your floor.
What woodworking shops deal with
Long process chains. A cabinet job might go through 8 steps: breakdown, milling, routing, edge banding, drilling, sanding, finishing, and assembly. Each step uses a different machine or station. Each step depends on the one before it.
Batch and custom mix. You might run a batch of 20 identical drawer fronts through the CNC router, then switch to a one-off custom piece. The schedule has to handle both without the batch job blocking everything else.
Finishing bottlenecks. The finishing booth is almost always the bottleneck. Spraying takes time. Drying takes more time. If you schedule three jobs to finish this week, the booth might only handle two. Your schedule needs to show that before Friday.
Material tracking matters. Lumber and sheet goods are expensive. Plywood, hardwoods, veneers, MDF. You need to know what’s in stock before you schedule a job. Running out of 3/4 maple plywood mid-project means a trip to the supplier and a day of lost production.
Small teams, many hats. In a 5-person woodworking shop, everyone does multiple things. The same person might run the CNC in the morning and sand in the afternoon. Your schedule needs to show who’s where and when.
How Machestra works for woodworking
Every station on one board. Table saw, jointer, planer, CNC router, edge bander, sander, spray booth, assembly bench. All visible on the scheduling board.
Per-operation scheduling. A cabinet job gets broken into operations: breakdown on the panel saw, profile on the CNC, edge band, drill, sand, spray. Each step gets its own machine and time slot. You see which step every job is on.
Material tracking. Track your sheet goods, hardwoods, hardware, and finishing supplies by type and quantity. Get alerts when stock is low. Know before you schedule whether you have the material to run the job.
Conflict detection. Two jobs need the CNC router at the same time? Machestra catches it before it becomes a problem on the floor.
Works on a phone. Your finish carpenter checks what’s next from the spray booth. No walking to the office. No shouting across the shop.
What you don’t need
You don’t need a full ERP. You don’t need a quoting module. You don’t need cut list optimization or 3D rendering software built into your scheduling tool.
You need to know what every machine is doing, who’s on it, and what’s next. Machestra does four things: machines, people, materials, schedules.
If you’re still running your schedule on a spreadsheet, it works until you have more than a few machines and overlapping jobs. And if you’ve looked at MRP systems like MRPeasy, the per-user pricing doesn’t make sense when you want your whole crew to see the board.
Pricing
No per-user fees. Your CNC operator, your finisher, your office manager, and your delivery driver all see the schedule.
- Free: 3 machines, 5 users. No credit card.
- Starter ($12/mo):* 10 machines, 50 users.
- Growth ($39/mo):* 100 machines, 100 users.
Getting started
Under 10 minutes. No consultants. No training sessions.
*All Machestra prices shown in USD. Actual price may vary based on your location.