Improve Small Business Operations with Manufacturing Software

There comes a time when many small businesses find the need to find a software solution to help with the daily functioning of their business.  This is the type of business that starts out as a one or two person show, and with hard work and a little luck, begins to grow.

As it grows, the workload gradually, or sometimes not so gradually becomes too much for the proprietors.  This leaves them to make a critical business decision; either hire more people to alleviate the load, or look for manufacturing software that allows the same people to handle the increased workload.

On one hand, it is the easy road to pick and area or function, and then throw human resources at it.  It could be purchasing, or scheduling, or process engineering or quality.

It could be human resources and timesheets, payroll or accounting.   As with any endeavor in life, the easy and fast road may not be the best.  Hiring a purchasing manager may suddenly and magically reduce the workload, but it also introduces as significant expense.  This sudden increase in overhead goes right to the bottom line since the purchasing function in itself does not add intrinsic value to the finished goods. The new job is also a recurring expense and every month or year that the person is in the job, it costs more, costs that eat profits.

Enter manufacturing software. Low cost software solutions have come a long way.  There is now manufacturing software available across the entire cost spectrum, and across the entire complexity spectrum.  The best part is that the lower price does not necessarily denote lower functionality.  There is low cost ERP software available that can interface with equally inexpensive software or modules that allow barcode scanning.   Using such a module make the ERP software easier to deploy for a small operation as it allows system updates without the need for data processing.   Just scan and go, that's all there is.

Low priced MRP/ERP Software has also become more user friendly in that it does not require an IT professional to setup and deploy.  In the past setting up manufacturing software required a lot of upfront work. There were definitions to create, tables to create, tables to fill in, and programming to tie it all together.   If after the initial run in,weaknesses were discovered, more IT time to fix these. Low cost software solutions tended to be cheap to buy and very expensive to setup, run and maintain.

Many modern low-end Manufacturing Software programs include menus and "wizards" to walk the small business owner through the steps of setting the system up themselves.

If they choose not to personally do this task, it may still be possible to use other internal labor, in engineering or quality who do not need to be programmers, they just need to understand the task and go through intuitive menus and wizards.  One word of caution is that the software chosen should be able to handle increases in the business, without upgrading.  Some good homework is in order here, but that's a topic for another day.