Sorry if this is kinda long..... if you're eyes start to glaze over halfway through this, please feel free to get back to Buick talk. p Anyways....We seem to have a very diverse group here from all walks of life. Maybe one or more of you might have some opinions you can share with me...... Our company is preparing to go through some severe growing pains. The company hired me 3 1/2 years ago to begin a new division for them. It's taken off like a rocket, sales have doubled and profits are better than ever. I have been doing everything for my division including sales, marketing, engineering, purchasing, AR, AP, scheduling, etc..etc... I created my own spreadsheets for purchase orders, invoices, job costing, estimating, scheduling, quoting, inventory control, year end reports, etc... using Works Database, Works Spreadsheets, and Word forms. The other half of the company (the original half) uses Quick Books Pro for their accounting, and hand written papers for purchasing. My division has proven itself to be a staple in the future of the company, and it's time to quit running 2 sets of books. My databases and spreadsheets were great for getting me started, but I think we've outgrown them. I don't know much about Quickbooks Pro, but by taking a quick 15 minute tour of it this afternoon, I don't think it's powerful enough to do everything I want and need. We don't make "widgets" by the thousands. We're a job shop. My division designs and builds industrial automation equipment ranging from small conveyors to large automated assembly cells. The other half of the company does custom fabrication work. Anything from small sheet metal parts by the hundreds or one at a time, to large crane structures , truck beds, and everything inbetween. As a whole, our jobs can range anywhere from a $50 job with 1 hour of labor in it, to a $900K job with hundreds (thousands?) of hours and 400 purchased components in it. I would say that "most" of our jobs have around 50-100 hours of labor in them, and around 20 to 30 Purchase Orders for raw steel and purchased components. We need one central database that I can use to perform all purchasing, invoicing, quoting, scheduling, job costing, forcasting...etc... One thats powerful enough to track and control the big jobs, but flexible and simple enough that the tiny jobs don't required an hour of data entry just to get them in the system. We had "Job Boss" at my previous job, and I hated it. I think it was too powerfull and constricting. The smallest of jobs might take over an hour of data entry just to move the job through the shop. I'm tempted to try again at the Works database and spreadsheets. Maybe I can cime up with something better this time around. o No: Any suggestions? Anyone else here run a job shop with about 25 employees? How do you do it? What software do you use? Penny for your thoughts.
The old company I was with was a member of the PMPA precision machined products association. There is a list serv you can use once you are a member, just about like this board but for machine shop purpose only. My current shop (1 person) is too small to afford being a member, in your case this may be the best place to go. My shop does the same type of thing as your company on a smaller scale, one of my conveyor designs was in the January issue of Production Machining magazine which is published by the PMPA. I don't use computers for anything but searching the net myself. The old company used a software from Henning that seamed to work OK for them, I can get you in contact with them if you contact me outside of here 231-250-6941.
If what you need doesn't exist - create it, but dont do it yourself. Have a professional write your software - you're too busy doing what you do. Have a look at AccPac an d their Manufaturing suite. http://www.accpac.com/products/finance/pro/ProManufacturing.asp There was no software that remotely met the requirements of the Co. I work for, so "we" designed our own. The foundation was an accounting package that gave us the general AR/AP/GL chart of accounts....etc. already built-up but also allowed me to write to and read from its Databases as well as create our own plug-in modules. .....11 years later and of course it will never be completed, but thats perfectly acceptable because the needs and business model have changed continuously as well. The Co. has grown 1000% in that time - mostly because we were able to tear down what doesn't work and quickly build what was needed. You will not get that with an "off-the-shelf" package, but it sounds like your needs are not totally unique
If I had seen this thread before I would have responded to it . I have a consulting firm that builds custom web and client based applications such as this. We are in the business of doing the backend remotely and have the capability of being able to host the data for you if needed . We have a customizable CRM tool that might work if I knew a bit more about your business rules and needs. If you would like to contact me off list we can talk about what your needs might be . George in DC
My company is a bit different, but not too different I guess. Our machine shop has about 150 people. We tried a system called "MOOPI" (now I believe that is sold by a company named Baan), but found that it was too labor intensive. We went back to a manual (a.k.a. manually managed) system. On the other hand, I don't know how you could manage a system like this without a lot of data entry! For what its worth. -Bob Cunningham
