The whiteboard kept lying.
I've spent about twenty years making parts: CNC programming, 3D modelling, machining, R&D for aerospace and defense. On the side, my brother and I run a woodworking shop. Two very different trades, one identical problem: at any given moment, nobody could tell you the truth about the whole shop.
The board said one thing. The spreadsheet said another. The guy running the CNC knew a third thing that hadn't made it to either. Every morning started with the same ten-minute archaeology dig (which job is actually behind, what did we promise, do we even have the material), and every one of those ten minutes was a minute not spent cutting.
I tried the software that's supposed to fix this. Some of it is built for offices and priced for offices. Some of it is built for the trades and looks like it was assembled from a clip-art CD. None of it survived contact with a phone screen, in shop light, with sawdust on my hands.
So I built the thing I wanted: one view over the entire shop, honest by construction, that answers "what needs attention right now" before I've finished picking up the phone. Every stage name, every default, every number on the dashboard came out of a job that actually went sideways. Nothing in it is a guess about how shops work.
Why "Phanim"
In the book of Ezekiel there are wheels called the ophanim: wheels within wheels, rims covered in eyes, that move in any direction without turning. It's the oldest description I know of a thing that sees everything at once and can go wherever it's needed. That's the whole product in one image, and it's the last time you'll hear me talk about it.
Who's behind it
Phanim is made by Straven Studio, a one-person shop in Southeast Michigan, and it's mine. That means you're not talking to a support tier when something breaks; you're talking to the person who wrote the line. It also means the roadmap is short, honest, and driven by what shops actually ask for, in the order they ask for it.
If Phanim is missing something your shop needs, say so. That's how everything in it got here.
Put it on a real job.
Fourteen days, free, no card. If it doesn't earn its place on your floor, you've lost an afternoon.