01
The walk to the back
The desk leaves the counter to find out where a car stands—while the phone rings and the next customer waits.
01
Software
ButterBoard
Shop floor dispatch & intercom
The front desk and the shop floor on the same page. A job board on every wall, bay-side intercom, and spoken announcements—so the desk knows where every car stands without walking to the back.
01 — The problem
Delays live between the desk and the bay.
Most shops do not lose time on the work itself. They lose it finding out where the work stands.
02
Who has it?
Jobs get handed off by memory. Nobody is certain which tech owns which car until someone asks.
03
Promised times slip
A car that was due at two is still on the lift at three, and the first to notice is the customer.
04
Shouting across the floor
Messages travel by voice over air tools and compressors—or they do not travel at all.
02 — How it works
Three screens. One shop.
The desk, the wall, and the floor show the same jobs, live. A change on any one appears on the others within a second.
01
Front desk
Take in the job with year, make, and model from the lists, VIN, customer, RO number, priority, and promised time. Put it in a bay and it goes to the tech stationed there. Every open job, its status, and its clock on one screen.
02
Shop floor TVs
One large tile per bay—vehicle, work, tech, status, and a running clock—readable from across the floor. New work is announced out loud and captioned, so nobody has to be looking.
03
Shop tablet
Techs tap their name, pick the job, and move it along—in progress, waiting on parts, waiting on approval, done. The desk sees it the moment it happens.
03 — Capabilities
Built for a working floor.
01
Job board
Every bay on the wall: vehicle, work, RO, tech, and status as both a colour and a word. A Next Up queue and desk notices across the top.
02
Bays and techs
Techs are stationed in bays, so assigning the bay assigns the tech. Any job can still be handed to someone else.
03
Bay-side intercom
Push-to-talk between the desk and the floor, or page the whole shop through the TV speakers. One talker at a time.
04
Spoken announcements
New jobs, assignments, cars ready for pickup, and desk notices read aloud the way a shop says them: “twenty nineteen Ford F one fifty.”
05
Time against shop hours
Clocks run only while the shop is open. Promised times turn amber when due and red when late.
06
Your shop on every screen
Your name, logo, and colour on the board, the desk, and the tablet.
04 — Bay-side intercom
Talk to the bay without walking to it.
Hold the button at the desk and the tablet in the bay speaks. Hold it on the tablet and the desk hears the tech. Page the whole shop and it plays through every TV on the wall.
- One talker at a time, with a clear busy signal
- The desk sees who is calling
- A one-minute limit on every call
05 — What is installed
Screens in the shop. Nothing else.
- A TV on the wall for each board, with a small computer behind it
- A tablet on the floor for the techs
- The front desk’s existing computer and browser
- No server at the shop: ButterBoard is hosted by Lawton
- Mounting, network, and cabling installed by Lawton when needed
06 — Security and reliability
Private to the shop.
- Screens join the shop with a pairing code and can be removed instantly
- The console password is stored as a salted hash; repeated wrong guesses are locked out
- Each shop runs separately, with its own data
- Boards keep showing the last update through an internet outage and catch up on their own
- Nightly backups, and updates reach every screen automatically
- Intercom audio travels directly between devices and is never recorded
07 — See it live
The whole shop in one window.
The live demo runs the front desk, a shop TV, and a bay tablet side by side. Add a job and hear the TV announce it. Move it on the tablet. Call the bay. No sign-up—a fictional shop, reset every hour.
See it live
Questions
Before you ask.
- Does it replace our shop management system?
- No. ButterBoard runs alongside it and handles what happens on the floor: who has which car, where it stands, and how the desk and the bays talk. Integrations with shop management systems are planned.
- What do we need to buy?
- A TV for each board, a tablet for the floor, and a reliable network. Lawton quotes and installs the hardware with the site, or works with what you have.
- What happens if the internet goes down?
- The boards keep showing the last state of the shop, marked with when it was last updated, and catch up by themselves when the connection returns.
- Is the intercom recorded?
- No. Audio goes directly between the devices in the shop and is not stored anywhere.
- Can we try it first?
- Yes—the live demo is open to anyone, and every shop starts with a pilot set up by Lawton.