Own your factory. Do what you're best at.
I rebuilt this site and got something wrong in a way that applies to your shop. I had built every piece by hand, and it ate the hours that belonged to client work. So I moved to a tool I host myself, kept control of the data, and gave the plumbing less of my time.
Put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket.
Andrew Carnegie, The Road to Business Success (1885)
How much of your factory should you build yourself? And how much should you simply use, so you can do what you're best at?
Sometimes you have to get rid of things to make room for better ones.
You're looking at a new site. I rebuilt it, and I want to tell you why, because the reason applies to your shop too.
My previous site was fully custom. Astro, Cloudflare Pages, Supabase, a stack of integrations, the whole thing built by hand.
It had localization in Dutch, German, and English. It had a livestream announcement with calendar feeds. Not only that, but it had newsletters. And, lastly, it had a full interactive guide with best practices.
It worked, and I owned every part of it. I'm not telling you that to brag. I'm telling you because I got it wrong.
Building my own website is not my core business. It ate hours that belonged to client work and writing.
Every feature I added was one more thing to maintain. I was so busy proving I could build it that I never asked whether I should.
So I moved back to Ghost, an open-source publishing platform. I host it myself, my writing and my subscriber list are mine, and I can walk away tomorrow with all of it.
Same control, same sovereignty. I just didn't have to build it. And the writing, which is the actual point, gets my time now instead of the plumbing.
The point is
Here's the lesson, and it's the one I keep giving shops. Owning your factory means owning your data, keeping your options open, and never getting locked to a single vendor. It does not mean building every tool yourself.
If a proven open tool already does the job, use it, and save your building for the places where building actually gives you an edge.
This is where over-engineering quietly kills good shops. Smart people build what they could have reused, because building feels like progress. I was one of them, and this website was my proof.
So, what will you find here? I write about digital transformation for metalworking. The unified namespace, AI agents, and the move away from one heavy ERP toward software you actually own. From a single connected machine to a floor you can finally see. No sponsors, no vendor pitches, just how I think about it after twenty years in this trade.
I wrote about this before:
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Q&A
What happened to the old site? It's archived, and I can share access by request. If you need a translation, just right-click the page in a browser like Chrome and translate it to your favorite language.
Will you still work with us in Dutch or German? Of course. My work hasn’t changed, and the team has grown, so there is more support now.
Where can I find the podcasts? Both shows run under Sheet Metal Connect. Smart Metals in English, and Metaal Connect in Dutch. You can find all of it at sheetmetalconnect.transistor.fm.
I wrote about this before:
