July 27, 2026/5 min read/Product Update

The Purplefish Pipeline || July: Introducing LTO from ISOs (& Owner-Supplied BOMs)

The latest on what we're building, what we're learning, and what's improving inside Purplefish.

Adam Sirois & Martin KessCEO & Co-founder / CTO & Co-founder

labor takeoffweld countingpiping ISOspipe fabrication

An isometric drawing of an impossible triangular piping loop with flanges and pipe supports, while a hard-hatted estimator with a clipboard says 'Still 38 welds.' - illustrating weld counting from piping ISOs — Fig. 01 — The geometry can be impossible. The weld count still has to be right.

Purplefish is an AI-powered material and labor takeoff platform for pipe fabrication contractors. Welcome to the latest update on what we're building, what we're learning, and what's improving inside Purplefish.

🔧 Introducing Labor Takeoff (LTO): weld and joint counts from piping ISOs

MTO tells you what to buy. Labor is where the bid is won or lost.

We built this off 100+ conversations with estimators, and one principle came out of them: AI does the exhaustive part, every component, every end, page after page, and every judgment call stays with the estimator.

Our Approach

We read the drawings, not just the BOM. We pull every component and its ends off the drawing, cross-check the counts against the BOM, and match the ends into verified joints.
Every weld traces back to the drawing. Click any line in the count and go straight to the ISO and the exact spot it came from.
Long runs of pipe, handled. A 60-foot run built from 20-foot sticks has two extra welds in it. Set your stock lengths and we automatically apply the extra welds.
Field welds are an estimator's call, so we leave them to you. Add field, field fit, or extra shop welds right on the ISO with a couple of clicks, or apply a blanket Field/Shop split.

Purplefish Labor Takeoff interface showing a piping isometric drawing with every weld and joint circled and numbered, cross-referenced to flanges, valves (MOV 4304, TE-4304), and coordinate callouts, so each weld traces back to the exact spot on the ISO

Fig. 02 — Every weld and joint identified on the ISO and traced back to the exact spot on the drawing.

The output

Bucket welds and weld inches by any combination of size, type of weld, material, and schedule or pressure class, plus a shop/field split. Bolt-ups are included. Export to Excel in your format so you can easily apply your own labor factors.

LTO: the current state of the product

We launched with a handful of early clients. So far, component identification runs over 99%. Weld counts often match a customer's own exactly, and when they don't we're usually within 10%. The gap is the interesting part: often it's a judgment call, sometimes it's an engineering error we caught, and sometimes it's an edge case we haven't solved yet, like clouded scope or pipe left open to air (coming soon).

🎨 New: Painting module for soft craft

We also launched a Painting and Coating module built for soft craft contractors: surface areas straight off the ISOs, plus fitting counts and factors you can customize.

🧬 What's next? Owner-supplied BOMs & MTOs

Some bids come with a BOM or MTO, some alongside ISOs, and some without. Up until now, if the bid didn't come with ISOs, Purplefish couldn't help. Soon that changes: upload any owner- or engineer-supplied BOM or MTO into Purplefish, and you get two main benefits.

Save hours of manual Excel cleanup. Purplefish instantly normalizes everything into a standard, easy-to-navigate format and cleanly rolls it all up with Smart Merge.
You can run Purplefish LTO. Once your BOM is clean, take labor off it the same way you would with ISOs.

Have a messy BOM you'd like to try this on? We'd love to run it.

Full bore ahead,

Adam & Martin
& the Purplefish Team

P.S. Want to pressure-test our LTO counts? Send a package you've already bid and we'll run it against your own takeoff.