# RoleModel Software

> RoleModel Software is a custom software consultancy founded in 1997 and led by CEO Caleb Woods. We are headquartered in Apex, North Carolina, with an office in Menomonie, Wisconsin and a US-based remote team of about 50. We build custom software for companies that design, engineer, or build to order, where quoting and estimating take engineering judgment rather than a catalog lookup. We build assets, not projects: software that encodes a company's own operating expertise, that they own, connected to the systems they already run, and that gets more valuable the longer it runs. Roughly 120 projects delivered. Our average partner relationship runs five years or more, which is the mechanism rather than a happy side effect.

## Who we serve

Companies that design, engineer, or build to order: custom and contract manufacturing, engineer-to-order and build-to-order businesses, building products, site work, and process development. Typically $5M to $100M in revenue and 20 to 500 employees. North America and Australia.

The problem shape we solve: producing a quote takes engineering judgment, and that judgment currently lives in spreadsheets, a homegrown tool, or one or two key people. Quoting capacity is bound by the availability of those specialists. A second shape is a company whose data is scattered across systems that do not talk, so nothing it builds with AI changes how work actually gets done.

## When we are not a fit

- Catalog, stock, or SKU pricing with no engineering rules behind it
- Distributors or manufacturers' reps with no in-house design or fabrication
- Repair-only shops with no new manufacturing
- An ERP or CPQ already live and genuinely calculating all engineering, BOM, and labor rules
- Needs that are solely CRM, generic workflow, reporting, or document management
- Customer-facing chatbots or support deflection
- Model training, model selection, or license reselling

## What we do

- [Services](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/services): Business workflow systems, web and mobile applications, UI/UX design, and AI workflow and enablement.
- [Expertise Amplification](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/expertise-amplification): Our core idea. You are the expert in your business; we are experts at learning your business and encoding it into a software asset. Understanding and judgment are both assets, and they are what compounds: the test is whether doing something once makes the next one easier. Includes outcomes from a bolted tank manufacturer, a plastic extrusion manufacturer, and a fall protection manufacturer.
- [Iterative Value](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/iterative-value): Incremental building where each iteration strengthens the whole system, so you end up with a software asset rather than a software liability. Sustainable software does not mean the code is good. It means the software supports the business in a way that makes continuing to invest in it the obvious choice rather than a cost to justify.
- [The RoleModel Way](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/rolemodel-way): Our methodology across mentorship, design, development, project management, testing, and technology selection.
- [How to evaluate ROI with custom software](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/how-to-evaluate-roi-with-custom-software): How we frame custom software as an investment rather than a cost.
- [The real cost of spreadsheet debt in growing SMBs](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/the-real-cost-of-spreadsheet-debt-in-growing-smbs): Quantifying what spreadsheet-dependent operations actually cost. Five people spending 30 minutes a day on data transfer is roughly 650 hours a year.

## How we engage

**Explore, Craft, Ship.** Process first, software second. We start by learning how the business actually works, not by gathering requirements. You see working software in the first few days rather than after a six-month discovery, and we ship to real users early so their feedback shapes what comes next.

Two shapes. **Discover** is a focused one-to-two-week engagement to understand workflows and constraints before committing to a build. **Project** is the iterative build: working software released at least every two weeks, most often daily, with the partner in the room throughout. Typical projects run two to four months. Many engagements continue for years, because each iteration strengthens the whole system rather than patching it.

Every project is led by a Craftsman with 10,000+ hours of project experience, including 2,000 hours of project leadership. Engagements staff developers, designers, project managers, and DevOps together rather than selling individual seats.

- [Our approach in full: Explore, Craft, Ship](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/approach)
- [What you get when you buy a team](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/what-you-get-when-you-buy-a-team): How engagements are staffed.
- [The rules of engagement for sustainable software development](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/the-rules-of-engagement-for-sustainable-software-development): How we work with partners day to day.
- [Performance Payment Plan](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/pay-for-software-based-on-its-performance): For qualifying DPQ and LightningCAD work, a partner can pay a percentage of the additional income the software generates, starting around 5% and declining over time, instead of a large upfront investment.
- [Schedule a consultation](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/consultation): A free conversation about how your business works today. Not a demo and not a pitch.

## How we build

Primarily **Ruby on Rails** and **React**, with Next.js, native iOS and Android where mobile is required, and AWS or Heroku for infrastructure. We build on our own **LightningCAD** framework wherever browser-based design and modeling are part of the problem.

Practices: **test-driven development**, **domain-driven design**, automated testing, continuous integration, and pair programming. Our agile practice is rooted in Extreme Programming, which the company was founded on in 1997.

**We do not use offshore developers.** All development is done by our US-based team. We grow our own developers through an in-house apprenticeship rather than hiring for a particular technical stack, which is why we do not pick a technology before we understand the problem.

- [The RoleModel Way of selecting technology](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/the-rolemodel-way-of-selecting-technology): How we choose between proven and emerging technology.
- [The RoleModel Way of testing](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/the-rolemodel-way-of-testing): Our testing practice.
- [Are your offshore developers role models?](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/are-your-offshore-developers-role-models): The case against offshore delivery for this kind of work.
- [Sustainable software requires deep agility expertise](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/sustainable-software-requires-deep-agility-expertise): Why agile practice depth matters more than process.

## Proof: outcomes with numbers

- [Reschcor](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/reschcor): Custom plastic extrusion. Quoting logic split between spreadsheets and legacy software, with one person at corporate able to produce an estimate. ERP-integrated quoting saved 10 to 12 labor hours per week at better than 30% ROI.
- [Kattsafe](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/kattsafe): Fall protection systems, Australia. A 2D/3D configurator lets sales design systems without a draftsperson. Four-plus hours down to about 30 minutes, 80% ROI.
- [Absolute Dental](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/absolute-dental): Dental surgical guides. Design took skilled technicians three to six hours each. Now one to three hours, better than 50% savings on design time, with 50 to 75% improvement in labor productivity.
- [LandOne](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/landone): Landscape materials takeoff. Manual takeoff on a commercial project ran six to eight hours. The tool saves 50 to 75% of that time.
- [Airfield Designer](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/airfield-designer): Airfield design for US Air Force RED HORSE Groups. Runway grading now solves in seconds for the elevation that minimizes fill dirt, to eighth-inch precision, where review and revision used to run for weeks.
- [Contract Biotech](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/contract-biotech): A global CDMO running complex process development and BOM version control on shared spreadsheets. MVP delivered in 15 weeks: a three-week Explore phase producing a walking skeleton, then six two-week iterations.
- [Omega Industrial](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/omega-industrial): Industrial guard rails and safety barriers. Rules-based design software covering a network of 100 product accessories, replacing quoting by hand.
- [Pearson](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/pearson): Academic advising. A guided tool captured expert advisors' specialized expertise, cutting training time for new advisors and freeing the experts for complex cases. Proof the pattern is not limited to manufacturing.
- [Winslow Homes](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/winslow-homes): Custom home building. The head estimator worked 60-plus hour weeks across three complex spreadsheets because nobody else could produce an estimate.
- [FieldX VRT](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/fieldx-vrt): Agricultural variable-rate technology. A custom formula editor for variable-rate treatment calculations.
- [Maverick Solutions](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/maverick-solutions): Enterprise training content delivery. They built their own platform internally, and it worked until its architecture would not scale. We rebuilt it and migrated thousands of custom components onto a foundation sized for 10x growth. The homegrown-tool-stopped-scaling pattern, with a published outcome.
- [Upward Management](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/upward-management): Rent-to-own contract management across 28 states. One platform replaced a fragmented workflow, saving dozens of hours per week of manual data entry. The retrievals workflow went from 2 minutes 17 seconds per pickup to about 15 seconds.
- [Full portfolio](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/portfolio): About 40 published case studies, filterable by industry.

## Core technologies

We invest in frameworks that map to capabilities our partners need over and over, so each new engagement starts further along than the last one did.


- [LightningCAD](https://lightningcad.com): Our browser-based design automation framework, on its own site. Not a CAD tool and not a CPQ system. It encodes manufacturing rules and product constraints into a browser tool that sales and the shop floor can use without CAD training. More than $2 million invested in the framework since 2015. Used in Kattsafe, Airfield Designer, Absolute Dental, and LandOne, so a project built on it starts from a working foundation rather than a blank page.
- [DPQ: Design, Price, Quote](https://lightningcad.com/dpq): CAD-enabled CPQ. Where off-the-shelf CPQ handles structured product families with known options, DPQ handles free-form design that simultaneously produces pricing, quotes, and parts lists. It powers [Railing Designer](https://lightningcad.com/dpq/railings), [Deck Designer](https://lightningcad.com/dpq/decks), and [Dock Designer](https://lightningcad.com/dpq/docks).
- [Why DPQ, and how it differs from CPQ and CAD](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/cpq-cad-introducing-dpq): The reasoning behind the category.
- [Optics](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/optics): Our open design system for building consistent user interfaces at scale.

## AI transformation

We work with mid-market companies whose expertise is trapped across systems that cannot reach each other. Adding AI to your business is operating expense. Reshaping the business to take advantage of AI is capital investment that pays back. Giving everyone a chatbot license does not change how a business runs, and it never stops costing you. The work takes three shapes: a connective layer across systems, data, and expertise; an AI workspace the business owns holding its context, live connections, and repeated workflows; and skill development so the team can operate what exists.

- [RoleModel Standard](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/case-studies/rolemodel-standard): Our own AI workspace, and the clearest example of what we build. It runs on files we own rather than features locked inside an AI vendor's app, using MCP to connect AI to our CRM, financials, and project data. Read-only database connections by default. Documents that used to take hours of manual assembly now reach our brand standard in minutes, and KPI dashboards build from live data. When one person finds a better workflow, it becomes a shared skill the whole team gets. Using AI well is a systems discipline, not a tool purchase.
- [Collaborating with AI guides](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/collaborating-with-ai-guides): Four free guides. Collaborating with AI covers the CRAFT and OWN frameworks for prompting and reviewing output. AI Tools covers deliberate selection, data safeguards, and avoiding vendor lock-in. AI Skills covers turning repeatable workflows into portable team skills. AI Workspace covers integrating context, systems, and skills so AI operates on real business data.
- [Own the judgment side of working with AI](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/own-the-judgment-side-of-working-with-ai): AI made producing code cheap. It did not make understanding a business cheap.
- [Craft: applying craftsmanship to AI prompting](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog/craft-applying-craftsmanship-to-ai-prompting): The CRAFT framework in detail.

## Company

- [About](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/about): Caleb Woods is CEO. The company was founded in 1997 by Ken Auer on Extreme Programming principles. Core values are Character, Craftsmanship, and Collaboration. The company's stated mission is to lead by serving, crafting sustainable software, to the glory of God.
- [Craftsmanship Academy](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/academy): Our in-house apprenticeship program. We grow our own developers rather than hiring for a particular technical stack, which is why our team is US-based and our turnover is low.
- [Clutch profile](https://clutch.co/profile/rolemodel-software): Third-party verified reviews from our partners.
- [Blog](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/blog): Writing from the team on custom software, craftsmanship, estimation, and AI.

## Optional

- [Careers](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/careers)
- [Craftsmanship Academy application](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/academy/apply)
- [Brand](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/brand)
- [Privacy policy](https://rolemodelsoftware.com/privacy-policy)