NAICS 33271Industry · 5-digitregional market

Machine shops

SoftwareJob Shop & Metal Fabrication ERP 332

This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in operating machine tools, such as lathes (including computer numerically controlled), automatic screw machines, and machines for boring, grinding, milling and otherwise working metal, to produce machine parts and equipment, other than complete machines, for the trade. Machine shops providing custom and repair services are included. — Statistics Canada, NAICS 2022A

Establishments · CanadaA: 2,416
Under 10 employeesA: 63%
Establishments · USA: 17,433
Employment · USA: 218,350
Payroll · USA: $13.4B

Size and shape

How many businesses there are and how small they are. Fragmentation is the first thing an entrant — or anyone selling software into this industry — needs to know, and it is one of the few things that is actually measured.

Canadian establishments by number of employeesA

1–495840%

5–956723%

10–1944018%

20–4931613%

50–99934%

100–199311%

200–499110%

500+0—

Of 2,416 Canadian establishments with employees, 63% have fewer than ten — mostly small operators.

Where they areA

Ontario1,01542%

Quebec69929%

Alberta29312%

British Columbia2179%

Largest four provinces by establishment count. Establishments with employees only — sole operators with no payroll are not in this table, so in trades and personal services the true number of businesses is higher.

How many new establishments are still tradingA

Manufacturing, US · opened 2020

86.2%

1 year

70.8%

3 years

58.4%

5 years

45.3%

10 years

opened 2015

Measured, not forecast: the share of US establishments opening in one year that were still active later. It counts good operators and bad ones together, which is exactly why it is the honest answer to “what are the odds”. It is for the whole sector rather than this market, and the ten-year figure comes from an older cohort because no younger one has reached ten years.

How businesses here compete

The structural profile of subsector 332, which every industry beneath it inherits. This is analyst judgment from how the subsector is organised — not research into this industry, and not a measurement.

regional competitionmedium capitalUNVERIFIEDinherited from 332 Fabricated metal product manufacturing

The classic machine and fabrication shop: reachable by acquisition from a retiring owner, limited by machine hours and skilled labour, and exposed to a few large customers.

Who sets the price: The customer's drawing and a competitive quote.
The software it runs on: Job-shop ERP, quoting, scheduling, CAD/CAM.

Market screens and studies

Market-entry records filed along this branch of the hierarchy. A record at or beneath this code is about this industry; one above it is about something wider that contains it.

Screened one level up. Nothing is filed at this exact code; the screen for 3327 Machine shops, turned product, and screw, nut and bolt manufacturing covers it.

Operating businessScreenedfiled at 3327

Machine Shop AcquisitionExecution decides

binding constraint: defensibility

The pre-screen called this a candidate and the screen does not overturn that: this record does not find a clean kill. The population is large and small — 2,497 Canadian establishments, 63% with fewer than ten people; in the U.S. 22,081 shops averaging 16 employees — which means thousands of owner-operators, many near retirement, selling businesses a buyer with ordinary resources can finance. Machines hold resale value and the skill is real. What a full study has to test is what the buyer actually acquires. A machine shop owns no product: its revenue is other companies' drawings, re-quoted each time, and usually concentrated in a few accounts held personally by the departing owner. The order book can walk with him. The second pressure is measured. Protolabs' CNC machining revenue grew 17.6% to $243.3M in 2025 [A] on automated quoting and a network of partner shops, and its annual report names "thousands of alternative manufacturing machine shops" among its competitors. The quick-turn, low-volume job — historically the local shop's best-priced work — is the part migrating to a web upload. What stays local is repeat production, large or awkward parts, and repair for nearby industry. A study should price a specific shop against three things: share of revenue in its top three customers, whether the machinists stay, and how much of the work is quick-turn. Defensibility is named as the cut because it is the weakest factor, not because it is proven fatal. Software for these shops is screened separately.

NAICS 33275 vendors named11 sourced figuresOpen →

Software serving this industry

The vertical software markets filed along the same branch — who sells to these businesses and who they would have to displace — and then the generic categories every business buys whatever it does.

Sold across the wider branch

Vertical softwareScreenedfiled at 332 Fabricated metal product manufacturing

Job Shop & Metal Fabrication ERPExecution decides

binding constraint: distribution

Incumbent ECI Software Solutions (JobBOSS²) and Epicor

There are tens of thousands of machine and fabrication shops and no channel that reaches them — they are not on LinkedIn, they buy at trade shows and from their machine-tool distributor, and the ACV does not fund a field sales force. ECI and Epicor got there through decades of distributor relationships rather than through product. Nothing is disclosed here. Every vendor named on this record is private, or sits inside a parent that does not break the line out, so no revenue floor can be built and the market size is genuinely unknown rather than estimated.

NAICS 3324 vendors namedOpen →

Catalogued categories — named, not analysed

Discrete manufacturing ERP SaaS 31-33

And what every business buys · 25 generic categories

Sold to every industry rather than this one, so they are filed against the software industry's own code. The same few vendors recur across most of them.

Who works here

The occupations employed in Manufacturing, most concentrated in it first. The share is measured against the whole sector, not this industry — the published cross-tabulation stops there.

Concentrated in this sectorA

Aircraft assemblers and aircraft assembly inspectors One industry 91.3%

Supervisors, assembly and fabrication One industry 88.3%

Machine operators and related workers in pulp and paper production and wood processing and manufacturing One industry 86.1%

Managers in manufacturing and utilities One industry 84.4%

Machine operators and related workers in chemical, plastic and rubber processing One industry 82.7%

Mechanical, electrical and electronics assemblers and inspectors One industry 82.3%

Machine operators and related workers in food, beverage and associated products processing One industry 79.1%

Machine operators and related workers in mineral and metal products processing and manufacturing One industry 77.7%

Furniture, wood, plastic and other products assemblers, finishers and inspectors One industry 73.9%

Machine operators and related workers in textile, fabric, fur and leather products processing and manufacturing One industry 70.8%

These jobs are mostly done here. An operator in this industry is competing for them against others in the same industry, not against the whole economy.

And the jobs every business has

Other technical trades Across the economy 20%

Technical occupations in electronics and electrical engineering Across the economy 16.3%

Shoe repairers, shoemakers and upholsterers Across the economy 15.2%

Administrative and financial supervisors Across the economy 11.6%

Technical inspectors and regulatory officers Across the economy 10.7%

Administrative services managers Across the economy 9.6%

Legislative and senior managers Across the economy 9.2%

Building maintenance installers, servicers and repairers Across the economy 8.3%

Financial, insurance and related administrative support workers Across the economy 7.7%

Technical occupations in computer and information systems Across the economy 4.8%

Found across at least fourteen of the twenty sectors. In a small establishment several of these are usually one person, or an outside provider.

All 162 occupations →

Inside this industry

1 row sits directly beneath 33271. Each has a base report of its own.

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
332710	Machine shops	2,416	screened at 3327

Alongside it, under 3327 Machine shops, turned product, and screw, nut and bolt manufacturing

Code	Industry	Establishments · CA	What is known
33272	Turned product and screw, nut and bolt manufacturing	81	screened at 3327