Metalworks Finds Its AI Match with Fluent from TCP

Metalworks is a tier-one finished goods supplier to OEMs. They offer expertise in metal, laminates, and upholstery, with a proven rack record in bringing ideas to life and customizing them. They specialize in casegoods, storage, and organization solutions. From standard projects to specials and modifications, and build-to-order.

Founded in 1966 in Ludington, Michigan, Metalworks is a family-owned manufacturing company with a footprint of 180,000+ sq ft across Ludington and Fab-Lite in Manistee and Flairwood in Norton Shores, acquired in 2023.

Metalworks’ Tech Story

Metalworks has been an Epicor customer since 2010, when it first switched to that ERP system. Over the following decade, the company grew comfortable with Epicor as the backbone of its operations. This year, one of Metalworks' biggest company-wide goals was to bring artificial intelligence into parts of the business. It wasn't a vague idea floating around; it was an actual initiative, discussed and prioritized at the leadership level during the company's annual strategic planning meeting. Finding a reliable AI partner sat right at the top of that list.

Meet Jill Schoedel

Jill Schoedel is the IT Manager at Metalworks in Ludington, Michigan, and she did not arrive at the top of the org chart. She climbed it. “I’ve kind of worked my way up through the ranks over the years as IT manager,” she says, which undersells being the person the plant floor and the front office both call.

Her Epicor story is nearly as long. “We’ve been with Epicor since, I believe September 2010 or 2011.” In 2022, she moved the whole operation to the cloud. Every couple of years she makes the trip to the Insights Epicor Global Customer Conference.

A Visit to TCP’s Booth at the End of the Conference

AI was one of Metalworks’ main initiatives this year, so when the invitation to stop by the Technology Coast Partners booth, where they were showing Fluent, arrived, Jill and Guy Wolgamott, Metalworks’ application analyst, went. Near the end of Insights, they took a quick demo. “We both thought, this is really great. We needed to take this back to Metalworks. ” Back home, the reaction was the one every AI pitch gets.

Metalworks’ Challenge

Before Fluent came into the picture, Metalworks' accounts payable process looked a lot like that of many manufacturing companies: manual, paper-heavy, and slow. Approvals weren't much faster. If an invoice needed sign-off, someone had to physically write "approved" on it, make a copy, and get it over to accounts payable. On a good day, when the approver happened to be close by, that might take five minutes. On a busier day, it could sit for a while before anyone got to it.

Metalworks had already tried another AI tool for its quoting process about a year earlier — and the experience left the team a little wary.

So when Metalworks went looking for an AI partner for accounts payable, there was healthy skepticism in the room. As Jill put it, plenty of people around the office figured a tool that worked this well "was too good to be true.

The Implementation Experience

It Connected to Epicor Right Away, then it Just Worked

What happened next surprised even the doubters. There was no implementation project and no issues.

Andres Cubeddu, Head of Customer Success at Technology Coast Partners, walked Jill through the API key and the access scope, and got everything talking to Epicor correctly. Then he worked directly with Metalworks' accounts payable staff and with Parker Kirwin from the IT team to map out how invoices should flow through the system, running the right way.

The Numbers Behind the Accuracy

Metalworks’ own Fluent document analytics. Field retention of 99.6% across 298 scored AP documents. When reviewers opened a draft, they left the AI’s extraction exactly as it was. The supporting chart, titled “Document Analytics Review — Field Retention,” carried the headline. “When reviewers made edits, they changed almost nothing,” illustrated with a 99.6% circular gauge, and explained: field retention was 99.6% across 298 scored documents, meaning the AI's original extraction was almost always kept exactly as-is — the clearest sign that Fluent is reading the documents correctly. In practice, reviewer edits typically just added internal details like dates, references, or accounting information that don't appear on the source invoice. The takeaway called out on the chart: across 298 documents, the AI extracted 99.6% of fields correctly, with no human correction needed.

Overall performance broke down as:

The People who Touch it Every Day Stopped Shuffling Paper

Before Fluent, an AP invoice was verified, keyed into Epicor, and balanced by hand: two minutes to fifteen, call it seven or eight on average. Approvals meant writing “OK to pay” on paper, copying it, and walking it over.

The Before and After Fluent

• Entering one AP invoice: 7–8 minutes before Fluent → under a minute to review with Fluent

• Getting an invoice approved: 5 minutes at best before Fluent → seconds, from an email, with Fluent

• Preliminary projected annual savings: $35,700 a year.

End-User Acceptance

The approvals agent sends an email with a button. “From what I've heard from the end users, they love it. They look at it, and if everything's good, they just click approve.”

In AP, the source invoice sits beside the draft to be checked before anything posts. “It just makes our accounts payable team's day a lot easier. There's not so much paperwork to shuffle.”

Compared with the Last AI They Bought

Metalworks had spent about a year fighting another AI tool on its quoting process. “I just see errors every other week. With Fluent, we're not seeing that at all.”

Jill’s word for the difference: “It's like a breath of fresh air. We're very, very grateful, and very much impressed.”

Why It Stuck

AI was on the agenda at the annual strategic plan. “Finding a reliable company was at the top of the list, and they are very happy with what we've implemented.”

Jill Schoedel added: “We tell Andres all the time that Fluent is just unbelievable. To see it connect to Epicor right away and start working for us during testing, we were very, very, very happy.”

What's Next

Metalworks’ future outlook isn't limited to accounts payable. The team already has its sights set on automating order entry as the next big step, and there's growing interest in bringing similar automation to accounts receivable as well. Beyond that, Metalworks plans to look across other departments and offices within the company to see where Fluent could lighten the load and make everyday work easier and more productive.

This forward-looking approach isn't just an IT initiative; it's part of the company's broader strategy. AI adoption was already a top priority coming out of Metalworks' leadership planning sessions, and the early success with Fluent has only reinforced that direction. With a trustworthy foundation now in place, Metalworks feels confident expanding into new areas, backed by a partner that has already proven it can deliver.

Key Findings

• A strong, established ERP foundation (Epicor, in the cloud since 2022) made it easier for Metalworks to plug in a new AI solution without disruption.
• Hands-on, responsive implementation support made all the difference. Working closely with TCP's Andres Cubeddu turned a potentially technical, complicated setup into a smooth, guided process.
• Real results built trust fast. A 99.4% extraction accuracy rate and review times under a minute per document quickly won over even the skeptics who thought it was "too good to be true."
• Automated approvals delivered an outsized win. Cutting approval time from minutes down to seconds made a noticeable, daily difference for end users across the company.
• Internal IT support was ready to help with setup steps like access scopes and API keys, making onboarding faster and easier.
• One success is opening the door to more. Metalworks is now looking to expand automation into order entry, accounts receivable, and other departments, with confidence built on its first experience with Fluent.