SD Industries is a US-based architectural fabricator specialising in custom metal, signage, and glass solutions for the construction industry. From headquarters in Saddle Brook, NJ and a factory in Conroe, TX, the company fabricates structural steel, architectural metal (guardrails, gates, roofing, stairs), custom signage (wayfinding, plaques, directories), and specialised glass (bulletproof, laminated, frosted, insulated). The client list is the major construction firms — Turner, Skanska, Kiewit, Suffolk Construction — and the certification stack (AISC, AWS, plus MBE / DBE / SBE) reflects the seriousness of the regulated work.
The operating reality of a project-driven custom architectural fabricator is heterogeneous in a way generic ERP doesn't handle: every project is a unique fabrication with its own BOM, its own pricing formula, its own quality regime, its own production schedule, and its own contractor relationship. Off-the-shelf Odoo handles 50% of that out of the box. The remaining 50% — the parts that actually decide whether the operation runs — has to be built.
The Challenges SD Industries Faced
- Every project is a custom fabrication. Architectural metal and signage projects don't run on a standard catalog. Each project has its own engineered drawings, its own BOM, its own material specification, its own pricing formula. Stock Odoo assumes a product catalog with standard variants; the fabricator needs a project-driven model.
- Quoting custom work requires a formula engine. Pricing for custom architectural work is not a price list — it's calculated from material weight, finish type, labour hours, complexity factors, project geography, contractor relationship. Estimators were running these calculations in spreadsheets, with all the drift, error, and version-control overhead that implies.
- CRM that gets to a quote fast. The fabrication business runs on quotes; the speed from inbound inquiry to a defensible quote often decides the bid. Stock Odoo CRM doesn't have a quick-estimate path purpose-built for this motion.
- Project scheduling at fabrication scale. Multi-project, multi-resource, multi-week fabrication schedules need a real Gantt — interactive, drag-to-reschedule, dependency-aware — not a date column on a list view.
- Purchase requisitions tied to projects. Material procurement is per-project; standard purchase doesn't know which project a requisition is for, who needs to approve it, or how it ties back to the BOM.
- Field + shop coordination across two locations + traveling teams. NJ HQ, TX factory, traveling installers, contractor sites — time tracking, attendance, task assignment, and material requests all have to work for a workforce that isn't sitting in one building.
- Daily back-office friction at every screen. The team is in Odoo all day. Every micro-friction (a too-wide column, a lost filter when navigating away, a chatter pane on the wrong side, a list that can't expand inline) compounds across a hundred records per day per user.
How Linescripts Built the Solution
A purpose-built operating platform, not an Odoo install
What SD Industries runs is more accurately described as a custom operating platform built on Odoo than as a configured Odoo. The codebase carries ~30 SD-specific Linescripts-built modules plus dozens of operational refinements and integrations. Each module addresses a real friction point in the fabrication operating reality.
Project-driven model (BOM + product + project bridge)
Custom modules tie BOMs, products, sales, and projects together as one connected model rather than four independent ones. A project carries its BOM; the BOM drives material requirements; material requirements drive purchase requisitions; quotes price against the BOM with the right formulas applied.
Formula-based dynamic pricing engine
The custom modules is a dynamic pricing module with numeric attribute values, a formula engine, and a configurator. Estimators stop calculating in spreadsheets — the pricing logic lives in the operating system, version-controlled, audit-traceable, consistent across every estimator.
CRM with a fast-path quick estimate
The custom modules consolidates CRM top-level menus and adds a fast-path "Quick Estimate" form. The CRM motion is reorganised around how the fabrication business actually sells — get to the quote, get to the project — not around generic pipeline stages.
Bryntum Gantt Pro for project scheduling
The custom modules integrate Bryntum Gantt Pro into Odoo. The custom modules build out the SD-specific scheduling surface — a unified Gantt schedule for all project-related orders. Project managers see capacity, dependencies, and bottlenecks across the fabrication calendar in one view.
Purchase requisition workflow
The custom modules implement the project-tied purchase requisition workflow with the approval routing the operation actually uses — materials get requested against projects, approved at the right levels, and converted to POs without leaving the system.
Quality + repair workflows tied to projects
The custom modules implement quality management and project-integrated repair orders so fabrication quality controls and any rework loop run inside the same operating model as the original project.
Task management + attendance + time tracking for a distributed workforce
The custom modules is a full task-management application with dashboard, inline check-in / check-out integrated with Odoo's, and a systray component showing active time. The,, and module cover the time-tracking layer across HQ, factory, and traveling teams. Hubstaff integration brings field-team time directly back into Odoo.
Sales activity dashboard
The custom modules gives sales leadership a real activity-tracked view with call tracking and operational metrics — not a generic Odoo dashboard.
Operational + back-office surface refinements
Daily-use friction killers: editable inline list views, drag-and-drop binary attachments, easy label printing, filter-state persistence across navigation, repositionable chatter, expandable groups, left-aligned lists, customer product QR codes, audit log, simplified access management, branded backend theme, custom sign-in, and global search.
Plus the operational footprint that runs the rest of the business
HR, fleet, insurance, marketing campaigns, meeting minutes, survey, helpdesk, issue management, appraisals, daily message broadcast, Zoom integration, accounting customisations, budget cash flow bridge + reporting.
What Changed for SD Industries
- The operating system fits the fabrication business. Project-driven model, BOM-aware pricing, fast-path quoting, project-tied requisitions, Gantt scheduling, quality + repair, distributed-workforce time tracking — all native to the platform rather than worked around in spreadsheets.
- Estimators stopped pricing in Excel. The formula engine lives in the operating system; quotes are consistent across estimators and auditable after the fact.
- Project managers see the schedule as a Gantt. Bryntum Gantt Pro integration turned fabrication scheduling from a list-view exercise into a real visual operations workflow.
- Daily friction at the back office dropped meaningfully. Thirty small refinements (filter persistence, drag-drop, inline-editable lists, repositionable chatter, expandable groups) compound across a hundred records per day per user.
- Field + shop + HQ coordination runs on one platform. Task management with attendance integration plus Hubstaff sync covers the distributed workforce.
- The full operational footprint runs on Odoo. HR, fleet, insurance, marketing, accounting, budgeting, helpdesk, surveys, meetings, broadcasts — all in one system, all reconciling to the same source.
Closing
SD Industries is the case where "we built a custom Odoo platform" stops being a phrase and becomes the reality. ~30 SD-specific Linescripts-built modules plus dozens of operational refinements, scheduling integration, time-tracking integration, branded backend theme, and a CRM motion redesigned around how the fabrication business actually sells. The platform is not stock Odoo with some configuration — it is the operating system of a custom architectural fabricator, built to match how SD Industries actually runs, refined continuously as the business evolves.
