Operational systems for the next industrial age.

I’m Justin Thompson. I build the software that runs a physical business: scheduling, job status, inventory, product data, and the reporting around them, with AI where it earns its place. Thirteen years inside manufacturing and ecommerce, in Saskatoon.

Demand forecast

simulated data

80100120140160units / day−10w−6w−2wnow+2w+4wcapacity
  • Observed demand
  • Forecast mean
  • Possible futures
  • Capacity
Forecast horizon
28 days
Over capacity in 7 days
75%
80% interval
±5%
Simulated demand against a fixed capacity line: a 28-day forecast drawn as 96 possible futures, so the chance of running out of room is visible before it happens. The same kind of model sits behind systems 02 and 04.

01 · Work

Four systems, built inside real operations.

Jobs tracked on whiteboards, parts counts that drift from the shelf, reports built by hand. Each of these started there, with how the work actually happens, not with a technology. Names and numbers are left out. The problems were real.

Floorline

Production Control Layer

The daily operating system for a shop floor.

Problem
Jobs, due dates, and status lived in spreadsheets, on whiteboards, and in people’s heads, so every handoff needed a conversation.
System
One board to plan the week against real capacity, see where every job stands, send problems to the right person, and refresh the numbers each morning without anyone pulling them.
Result
Coordination moved from conversations to a shared board. The office plans from the same view the floor works from, and the manager is no longer the bottleneck.

My roleProblem framing · Workflow and product design · Architecture · Implementation · Testing and rollout

illustrative
A week planned against capacity: every job’s stage in one view, one day over the line, one job flagged.

Lifecycle

Product Lifecycle Intelligence

Which products to keep, mark down, or retire.

Problem
Answering that meant pulling sales, stock, and margin out of several systems by hand, and the answer changed depending on who did the pulling.
System
A review tool that scores every product on sales velocity, sell-through, and stock on hand, runs the heavy analysis overnight, and puts each decision in front of the right person to approve.
Result
Reviews happen on a schedule with the same evidence every time, instead of whenever someone has a free afternoon.

My roleDecision model · Workflow and UX · Data architecture · Cloud implementation · Production hardening

illustrative
Every product scored on velocity and stock, sorted into keep, mark down, or retire, and held for a person before it moves.

Human gate

AI-Assisted Product Creation

New products drafted by AI, approved by a person.

Problem
Every new product meant reading mockups and spec sheets, then typing the same details into the store, variant by variant.
System
Vision models read the mockups and spec sheets, fixed rules fill in whatever should never be guessed, and the result is a complete, validated draft record. A person checks each one before anything reaches the store.
Result
Setup turned from a chore into a review. People spend their time on the judgment calls, and nothing publishes without approval.

My roleWorkflow model · Product and UX · AI and rules design · API architecture · Acceptance and verification

illustrative
A mockup and a spec sheet become a complete draft record, held at the gate until a person approves.

Risk field

Inventory Risk Intelligence

Which empty shelves actually cost money.

Problem
A stock report lists everything at zero without saying which gaps are costing sales.
System
Each day a model estimates the sales lost to every empty item from its own history, then ranks the gaps biggest first, with every estimate traceable.
Result
The restock conversation starts with the biggest losses instead of the longest list.

My roleBusiness logic · Forecasting model · Data architecture · Decision UX · Reliability and boundaries

illustrative
Each stockout’s own sales history becomes an estimate of what the gap costs, ranked biggest first.

02 · Capabilities

Six disciplines, one loop.

Everything from how the work runs today to a system that runs on its own. The technology names live here so the stories above can stay in plain language.

Operational systems

Software shaped around how the work actually happens: who does what, what comes next, what happens when something goes wrong, and the rollout that gets people using it.

Process mapping, State machines, Capacity planning, Exception design, Rollout + training

Product + UX

Screens for people under pressure: clear ownership, quick review, and views that still make sense on a busy floor or in a truck.

Information architecture, Interaction design, Review workflows, Role + authority design, Operational visualization, Full-stack React + TypeScript

Data + intelligence

Numbers that are ready when the decision is made: pipelines, forecasts, and read models that say how fresh they are and how sure.

PostgreSQL + SQL, BigQuery, Python + Pandas, ETL / ELT, Forecasting, Cache + read models

AI + automation

Fixed rules where the answer is known, AI where it helps, and a person’s approval before anything consequential happens.

Multimodal vision models, Document + image extraction, Deterministic rules, Human-in-the-loop gates, Codex + Claude workflows, OpenClaw orchestration

Cloud + reliability

Thin interactive apps on scheduled and on-demand compute, with scoped access, monitoring that notices, and failures that recover instead of piling up.

Cloud Run jobs + services, Cloud Scheduler, BigQuery + Cloud Storage, Queues + retries, IAM + Secret Manager, Health + monitoring, Migrations + rollback, Playwright + pytest

Commerce + integrations

The store, the inventory system, email, Slack, and the spreadsheets people already use, connected so information is entered once.

Shopify GraphQL + REST, Google Workspace, Slack, Webhooks + APIs, OAuth, Operational reporting

03 · Approach

The build starts before the code.

AI makes the build faster. Deciding what to build, how it fits the operation, and whether it is safe to ship stays with me.

  1. Watch the work

    Sit with the people doing it: the handoffs, the workarounds, and where it breaks.

  2. Write the model down

    Agree on the stages a job moves through, who owns each one, what data it needs, and what counts as an exception, before anything is built.

  3. Ship the smallest useful thing

    Put the narrowest version that works in front of real users, then watch how they actually use it.

  4. Harden and extend

    Automate what has proven itself, make it reliable, and move the heavy work somewhere it can run on its own.

04 · About

Close enough to the work to know where software breaks.

I came to software from the floor, not from a computer science program. Before that I framed houses and tested oil and gas wells.

For thirteen years I have worked inside a manufacturing and ecommerce business: scheduling production, managing inventory, reading demand, fixing handoffs, and noticing where spreadsheets, systems, and judgment stop lining up. Along the way I did the same for a field-service company with technicians spread across several locations.

Now I build the systems I used to wish for, and I know what a job looks like from the floor before any software shows up.

Based in
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
Studied
Business Economics (Honours), University of Saskatchewan
Background
Manufacturing, ecommerce, and field service
Works in
Operations, data, and AI
Justin Thompson seated in a studio workspace
Dark album artwork with mirrored angular figures drawn in fine red lines

05 · Outside the work

The Basement Paintings

Long instrumental pieces with a Saskatchewan ambient/post-rock band, since 2011. Fifteen years of listening, patience, and building something large with other people.

  • Saskatchewan Music Awards Metal/Loud Artist of the Year (2020)
  • Western Canadian Music Award nominee, loud/heavy category (2020)
  • BreakOut West official showcase (2022)

“Future Describer” began as a song title on our first album before it became my online name.

thebasementpaintings.com (opens in a new tab)

06 · Contact

Have an operation that needs better software?

It starts with a conversation about how your operations, data, and tools fit together, in person around Saskatoon or a call from anywhere. If a spreadsheet is still the right answer, I’ll say so.

I take on a few systems, analytics, and automation projects at a time, the kind where real operations and software have to meet. I’m also open to joining a team that needs this kind of builder.