Manufacturing Software Development Company
FISTA Solutions builds manufacturing software: production visibility and OEE, MES and ERP integration, quality and non-conformance systems, maintenance planning, operator interfaces, and AI agents for documentation, defect triage, and planning support — with a strict boundary around control systems.
- 150+
- projects delivered
- 50+
- companies served
- 99.9%
- verified uptime
- 47%
- efficiency gains
- 12+
- countries reached
What we build
What does a manufacturing software development company build?
FISTA builds production visibility and OEE dashboards, MES and ERP integration layers, quality and non-conformance workflows, maintenance and reliability tooling, operator and supervisor interfaces, and AI agents for documentation, defect triage, and planning support.
- 01
Production visibility and OEE
Real-time line status, availability, performance, and quality metrics from machine data, consistent enough to drive decisions rather than arguments.
Visibility - 02
MES and ERP integration
Order, routing, consumption, and completion flows tied together so the plant floor and the business system agree.
Integration - 03
Quality and non-conformance
Inspection plans, defect capture with evidence, containment, CAPA workflow, and supplier quality tracking.
Quality - 04
Maintenance and reliability
Condition-based work planning from sensor and history data, spare parts visibility, and technician mobile workflows.
Maintenance - 05
Operator interfaces
Shop-floor screens designed for gloves, glare, and shift handover, showing the next action rather than a database table.
Floor - 06
Manufacturing AI agents
Work instruction drafting, defect image triage support, planning scenario summaries, and document extraction for supplier paperwork.
AI
Requirements
Which requirements shape manufacturing software development?
Manufacturing software must respect the plant: control systems stay isolated, machine data arrives faster than dashboards can render it, traceability must survive a recall investigation, and any interface an operator uses has to work in gloves under time pressure.
| Requirement | What it means here | How FISTA builds to it |
|---|---|---|
| OT isolation | Control networks must not be exposed to business applications. | Read-only data acquisition through OPC UA or historians, one-way boundaries, and no write paths from analytics or AI components. |
| Data velocity | Machine signals arrive continuously and at volume. | Edge buffering, streaming ingestion, time-series storage with rollups, and pre-aggregated views for shop-floor screens. |
| Traceability | Recalls require genealogy from raw material to shipped unit. | Lot and serial genealogy captured at each step, immutable event history, and query paths designed for recall speed. |
| Operator usability | Screens are used in gloves, in noise, under production pressure. | High-contrast, large-target interfaces, minimal data entry, shift handover context, and testing on the actual shop-floor hardware. |
| Quality evidence | Audits and customers demand documented process control. | Inspection records with evidence attachments, versioned work instructions, and exportable quality packs per order or lot. |
Where AI fits
Where do AI agents fit in manufacturing?
AI agents fit manufacturing in documentation and triage rather than control: drafting and updating work instructions, supporting defect classification from images and notes, summarizing planning scenarios, extracting supplier documents, and answering maintenance history questions for technicians.
- 01
Work instruction agent
Drafts and updates instructions from engineering changes and floor feedback, with engineering approval before release to the line.
- 02
Defect triage support
Classifies defects from images and operator notes, retrieves similar historical cases, and proposes containment for quality review.
- 03
Planning scenario agent
Summarizes the trade-offs of scheduling options against demand, capacity, and material availability for a planner to decide.
- 04
Supplier document agent
Extracts certificates, test reports, and packing documents into structured records tied to lots and orders.
- 05
Maintenance history agent
Answers technician questions from work order history and manuals with citations, cutting diagnosis time on recurring faults.
Cost and timeline
How much does manufacturing software development cost, and how long does it take?
Cost is driven by the number of machines and protocols, MES and ERP integration depth, and traceability requirements; timeline by plant access, change windows, and validation. FISTA does not quote blind: the scoping call returns a specification, an architecture, and an estimate.
Connectivity is the first budget question. Modern equipment exposing OPC UA is inexpensive to integrate; older machines needing gateways, sensors, or protocol converters are a hardware and commissioning project alongside the software. FISTA surveys the equipment in discovery so the plan reflects the plant you have, not a reference plant.
Plant access shapes the schedule more than engineering capacity. Change windows, shift coverage, and validation of anything touching production mean deployment happens on the plant's terms. FISTA sequences work so the visibility layer lands early and intrusive changes are batched into planned windows.
Send the scope you have, even if it is a paragraph. You get a written brief, an architecture sketch, and a phased estimate before any commitment.
Get a scoped quoteDelivery
How does FISTA deliver an industry software project?
FISTA delivers in four gated phases: a discovery sprint that produces the specification and integration map, an architecture and compliance design that names every control, iterative builds demoed weekly on your environment, and a verified release with runbooks, monitoring, and a handover or a managed operations option.
- 1
Discover and specify
Stakeholder interviews, system inventory, data classification, and a written specification with acceptance criteria and a phased plan.
OutputSpecification, integration map, estimate
- 2
Design for compliance
Architecture, data model, security controls, and the evidence plan for any audit, agreed before the first sprint.
OutputArchitecture decision record, control matrix
- 3
Build and demonstrate
Two-week sprints with automated tests, contract tests on integrations, and a demo on your environment every week.
OutputWorking increments in your repository
- 4
Verify and operate
Load, security, and acceptance testing against the spec; release with runbooks, dashboards, and alerting; optional managed operations.
OutputVerified release, runbooks, SLOs
Why FISTA
Why choose FISTA Solutions for manufacturing software development?
FISTA builds manufacturing software with a hard OT boundary, interfaces designed for the floor rather than the office, and traceability engineered for recall speed. Work is contracted through a US entity with full IP assignment and documentation your quality system can absorb.
Manufacturing specifics
- Machine data is acquired read-only through OPC UA or historians, with no write path from analytics or AI.
- Lot and serial genealogy is designed for recall queries, so traceability is a report rather than an investigation.
- Operator interfaces are tested on actual shop-floor hardware, in the conditions the shift works in.
- Deployment is sequenced around change windows and validation so production is never the test environment.
How FISTA engineers
- Spec-Driven Development: every deliverable starts as a written specification with acceptance criteria, so scope is testable before it is built.
- AI-native delivery: engineers direct coding agents under review gates and evaluation harnesses, compressing build time without loosening verification.
- Official Anthropic partner, with production experience across Claude, OpenAI, Google, and open-weight models, chosen per workload rather than by default.
- One accountable delivery lead, weekly demos on your environment, and code in your repositories from week one.
What you get as a client
- 150+ projects delivered for 50+ companies across 12+ countries since 2017, with 99.9% verified uptime on systems we operate.
- A US entity (FISTA Solutions Inc., Wilmington, Delaware) for contracting, invoicing, and IP assignment, with an engineering center in Faisalabad, Pakistan for cost-efficient senior capacity.
- US business-hours overlap for standups and reviews; written decision logs so nothing depends on a meeting you missed.
- Flexible engagement: fixed-scope build, embedded forward deployed engineers, or a dedicated team that you can scale month to month.
Clear answers
What buyers in this industry ask first.
Straightforward guidance for evaluating scope, fit, and the next step.
01Will your software connect directly to our PLCs?
Only read-only, and normally through OPC UA or a historian rather than directly to controllers. There is no write path from analytics or AI components to control systems, and the boundary is documented so your OT team can verify it.
02Can you integrate MES and ERP without replacing either?
Yes. Most engagements build the integration and visibility layer between them, so orders, consumption, and completions stay synchronized while both systems of record remain in place.
03What if our machines are old and have no network interface?
Then integration includes gateways, sensors, or protocol converters, which is a commissioning project as much as a software one. FISTA surveys equipment during discovery so that cost appears in the plan rather than mid-project.
04Can AI help with quality inspection?
It can support classification and triage — proposing a defect category from images and notes, retrieving similar historical cases, and preparing containment recommendations — with quality staff making the disposition and the record showing who decided.
05How do you handle traceability for recalls?
Genealogy is captured at each production step and stored as immutable events, with query paths designed specifically for recall scenarios, so answering which units contain a suspect lot is a report rather than a reconstruction.
06How long does a manufacturing software project take?
A visibility or quality release typically takes a few months, with equipment connectivity, change windows, and validation as the usual gating items. Discovery surveys the plant and dates those constraints before you commit.
Continue exploring
Related capabilities
Scoped in writing before you commit
Make the plant floor legible before you try to optimize it.
Bring the line, the quality burden, or the integration gap. The scoping call returns a specification, an OT-safe architecture, and a phased estimate.