SterP
One cloud system for your entire steel structure factory cycle — from RFQ to erection, with every drawing, approval, and payment tracked in one auditable place. Your own private instance on AWS.
Emad Beebrse
Metal Buildings Developers
International Building System Factory
05 Aug 2026
The factory runs on spreadsheets, WhatsApp, and memory
- Estimates built on prices nobody can prove were current
- Drawing revisions lost in email threads — "which version did the client approve?"
- Part status lives in the supervisor's head, not on a screen
- Cheques bounce and nobody notices until the bank calls
- No single view of where a project actually stands
SterP: the factory's single source of truth
A cloud-based system, hosted on AWS as your own private instance, that follows a project through every department — and keeps a permanent, auditable trail of every estimate, drawing, approval, part, shipment, and payment.
Full lifecycle
RFQ → Estimate → Proposal → Design → Detailing → Manufacturing → QC → Shipping → Erection → Payment — in one place.
Everything traceable
Every approval, revision, price snapshot, and cheque is logged with who, what, and when. Disputes end.
Your private cloud
Your own dedicated instance on AWS — your data, your branding, your domain. Accessible anywhere, backed up and secured.
One flow, followed end to end
Continuous communication with your customer
- Branded emails fire automatically on every milestone — proposal sent, drawing ready, shipment out, invoice due
- Comments live on the drawing or invoice itself, not lost in inboxes
- A secure client portal (Phase 2) lets customers approve drawings and see progress & payments
- Every message and approval is logged to the project timeline
Editable email templates
Your admin sets up templates for each situation — proposal, approval request, dispatch notice, payment reminder — with your logo and wording. Send consistent, professional messages every time.
You control your company setup
Branding
Company name, logo, colors, tax details — applied to every document and email.
Users & roles
Admin adds users and assigns roles with exactly the privileges each job needs.
Your data, isolated
A dedicated instance on AWS — your database, your storage, your domain. Nothing shared with anyone else.
Roles cover every seat in the factory: Sales, Estimation, Procurement, Design, Detailing, Project Manager, QC, Production Supervisor, Store Keeper, Finance, Logistics — plus your Admin who runs it all.
Architecture & technology stack
- TypeScript end to end — one language across API, web, and shared contracts, fewer defects at the seams
- Node + Express API — modular, per-department service boundaries; validated inputs (Zod) on every request
- React + React Router (Remix) — fast server-rendered web app acting as a secure gateway to the API
- MongoDB Atlas — flexible document store for the rich part/assembly/drawing hierarchy
- Redis + BullMQ — background jobs & the event engine that runs the departmental relay
- Amazon S3 — drawings, transmittals, and large files stored durably and securely
Runs on AWS as your private instance
Your own database, storage, and domain — deployed and operated on AWS. Backed up, TLS-secured, accessible from any browser.
Secure by design
Every route is fail-closed: no endpoint runs without an explicit auth & permission policy. Argon2 password hashing, JWT sessions, Helmet-hardened HTTP.
Every seat gets exactly the access it needs
Access is permission-based (resource : action, e.g. proposal:approve). Roles bundle permissions; your Admin can adjust them or create new roles. Roles are either Global (company-wide) or Project-scoped (only on projects the user is a member of).
| Role | Scope | What they can do |
|---|---|---|
| Admin | Global | Full access — users, roles, branding, settings, and every module |
| Sales | Global | Clients, RFQs, estimates, and sending/approving proposals |
| Estimation | Global | Build estimates on live prices, freeze price snapshots |
| Procurement | Global | Suppliers, price lists, material requests, POs (approve & issue) |
| Store Keeper | Global | Goods-received notes, stock levels & stock movements |
| Design | Project | Drawings, approvals, and formal transmittals to the client |
| Detailing | Project | Detailed drawings and bills of materials (BOM) |
| Project Manager | Project | Project status, milestones, schedule, and task assignment |
| Production Supervisor | Project | Assemblies & parts, advancing part/operation status on the floor |
| QC | Project | Inspections, non-conformance reports (NCR) & rework tracking |
| Logistics | Project | Shipments, packing lists, site receipts & erection |
| Finance | Global | Client invoices, receipts, cheque lifecycle, retention & handover |
What a complete steel ERP needs (that's easy to miss)
- Part hierarchy: assemblies built from piece-marks — not one flat list
- QC as real inspection reports + non-conformance & rework loop
- Inventory & goods-received notes so "not enough material" is detected automatically
- Client invoicing & cheque lifecycle (received → deposited → cleared / bounced)
- Formal drawing transmittals & approval states (approved / with comments / rejected)
- Estimate price snapshots to prove what prices an estimate assumed
- Task inbox so every handoff between departments is actioned, not forgotten
- Full audit log — who changed what, when
Why this works — and what we'll manage
Strengths
- Deep, real knowledge of the actual factory cycle
- A niche the big ERPs serve badly — real market
- Auditable trail solves the disputes that cost money
- Private AWS cloud — secure, backed up, accessible anywhere
Risks we manage upfront
- Scope is large → phased delivery, core spine first
- Concurrent phases → modeled correctly from day one
- Shop-floor adoption → simple mobile entry, phased rollout
- Cloud hosting → managed AWS setup, backups & DR planned upfront
A phased roadmap so you see value fast
| Phase | What you get | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | The spine: RFQ→Estimate→Proposal→Project, drawings + revisions + approvals, parts + QC, procurement + goods receipt, inventory, payments + cheques, notifications, roles & branding | Get you live & running the real cycle |
| Phase 2 | Client portal, editable email templates, cost-vs-budget dashboard, 3-way invoice matching, large-file/BIM handling, Arabic/English | Multiply value & client-facing polish |
| Phase 3 | Analytics & reporting, accounting integration, e-signature, full certification traceability, WhatsApp/SMS approvals | Maturity & scale |
We start narrow and real: get the full cycle operating on SterP, then expand with your feedback — not an 18-month build before you see anything.
Let's build SterP together
You bring the factory expertise and real projects; we bring the architecture. Two weeks of discovery workshops to lock the Phase 1 scope, then we start delivering the spine.
Discovery workshops — 2 weeks
Live Phase 1 spine with your branding
Design partner & factory expert