Case Study

How Standard Steel brought payroll precision to the pay complexity behind North America’s only forged rail wheel production

Standard Steel’s UKG Pro WFM platform gave the company a strong workforce foundation. What they needed next was a way to handle the highly specific pay rules behind forged rail wheel production: piecework, shop bonuses, holiday pay, jury duty, and bereavement pay. CloudApper extended UKG with the process layer needed to turn those complex rules into accurate, payroll-ready outcomes.

1795

Forging heritage behind Standard Steel’s manufacturing expertise

Only

Producer of forged steel wheels for North American railcars and locomotives

Precise

Pay calculations for piecework, bonuses, and holidays

Standard Steel LLC

North America’s only producer of forged steel wheels for railcars and locomotives

Industry

Rail Manufacturing

Enterprise System

UKG Pro WFM

Primary Gap

Complex Pay Rules

What They Make

Forged Rail Wheels, Axles & Railcar Components

Solution Area

Payroll Process Layer

Heritage

Producing Forgings Since 1795

CloudApper AI + UKG Pro WFM

CloudApper AI extended UKG Pro WFM with a custom process layer for complex manufacturing pay rules, turning shop bonuses, piecework, and non-worked pay into accurate payroll-ready data.

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The challenge

The pay rules behind rail manufacturing needed more precision than standard workflows could provide

Standard Steel was moving to UKG Pro WFM, a strong foundation for overall workforce management. But the company’s shop-floor pay rules reflected the realities of a highly specialized rail manufacturer. They needed payroll precision for piecework, shop bonuses, and non-worked pay without sending teams back into spreadsheets and manual calculations.

Shop bonuses followed changing rules

Bonuses involved shifting weekly percentages, flat dollar additions, job codes, departments, and labor categories — creating calculations that needed to be handled consistently before payroll processing.

Piecework pay had to run alongside regular hourly pay

Standard Steel needed daily piecework earnings calculated against employee performance and specific job steps, while also protecting regular pay from accidental overpayment.

Non-worked holiday rules required precise averages

Holiday, jury duty, funeral leave, and bereavement pay required weekly averages that combined regular pay and bonuses, including special handling when employees worked on holidays.

The solution

A process layer that made UKG work for Standard Steel’s exact pay rules

CloudApper AI integrated with UKG Pro WFM to automate the pay logic Standard Steel needed. Instead of forcing payroll teams to work around the system, CloudApper created a tailored process layer that calculated complex pay, prepared the final data, and sent it back into UKG for payroll processing.

Holiday and overtime interactions
Holiday pay interacted with overtime calculations in ways no existing payroll template handled — leading to underpayments that went undetected for weeks.

Full implementation details in the PDF

See how CloudApper configured shop bonuses,
piecework pay, and non-worked holiday
calculations with UKG Pro WFM.

The results

Payroll precision for complex manufacturing pay rules

The impact was payroll precision at the point where manufacturing complexity usually creates risk. Standard Steel gained the ability to run highly specific pay rules inside its UKG Pro WFM environment, reduce payroll stress, and make sure employees received accurate and timely compensation without manual recalculation cycles.

Precise

Pay calculations for complex piecework and bonus structures

Accurate

Compensation across regular pay, piecework, and non-worked holiday rules

Reduced

Human-error risk from manual payroll calculations

Stronger

Return on the UKG Pro WFM investment through tailored capabilities

Holiday and overtime interactions
Holiday pay interacted with overtime calculations in ways no existing payroll template handled — leading to underpayments that went undetected for weeks.

Full impact details in the PDF

Calculation logic, implementation details, and
pay-rule outcomes.

How CloudApper extended UKG

Trusted by enterprises

4.9/5

UKG Marketplace

4.7/5

Same situation?

Manufacturers often run into pay rules their enterprise system was not originally configured to support. CloudApper closes those payroll precision gaps in weeks, without replacing the system your teams already rely on.

CloudApper helped us automate several complex payroll calculations, including shop bonuses, piecework pay, holiday pay, and bereavement pay. The implementation went smoothly, and the solution has been running flawlessly. The team was excellent to work with and very responsive throughout the process.

Angela N. Wolfley

Human Resources Supervisor · Standard Steel, LLC

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More from your UKG investment - without waiting on roadmaps or IT backlogs.

CloudApper is the process layer that extends enterprise software – enhancing what UKG already does, adding what your business specifically needs, in weeks not quarters. Because the organizations that move fastest are the ones that don’t wait to unlock what they’re already capable of.