MANUFACTURING SOFTWARE


Photo courtesy Littlestar Plastics and Henning Industrial Software


At Littlestar Plastics, a moldmaker based in Rockford, IL, an employee enters shop-fl oor information using the big-screen electronic scheduling board developed by Henning Industrial Software for use with its Visual EstiTrack ERP program.


ERP Software for Small Shops


Modernizing the smaller shop with the latest digital tools available from enterprise resource planning (ERP) software developers


Patrick Waurzyniak Senior Editor


W


hat can ERP do for managers running a small shop? The answer is pretty much everything, if you’re aiming to boost sales, make manufactur- ing production goals and build high-quality parts,


and in turn satisfy customers and make a decent profi t. While enterprise resource planning (ERP) is often seen as the domain of large-scale manufacturers, job shops of all sizes in discrete manufacturing greatly benefi t from digitizing opera- tions with modern software that often lifts the smaller builder out of working off paper-based systems and Excel spread- sheets into the latest ERP automation with digital scheduling and production analysis tools. The latest ERP software can be tailored to use at smaller shops, with easy-to-use smartphone interfaces for accessing shop ERP data and new big-board electronic schedulers offer- ing easy touch-screen input on the factory fl oor. Many options are available now to small manufacturers, including either on-premises installations or newer cloud-based ERP systems


December 2016 | AdvancedManufacturing.org 49


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