Trakware’s Role for Engineer-to-order or Project-based Manufacturers

Trakware Systems is the worldwide leader in manufacturing execution system (MES) solutions for engineer-to-order (ETO) and project-based manufacturers maximizing both profitability and productivity. Trakware specializes in lean business-critical functions such as estimating, advanced scheduling, job costing, production management and labor as well as material shop floor data collection. TRAKware software fully integrates with existing ERP systems, as well as major software providers for financials, engineering design, optimization, payroll and wireless interaction for mobile workers. Trakware recognizes ETO manufacturing as a process and includes a wide range of industry sectors including Architectural Woodworking, Cabinets, Store Fixtures, Doors and Windows, Furniture, Oil and Gas Fabrication, Solid Surface, Metal Fabrication, Yachts-building, and Custom Electronics.

Founded in 1995, Trakware’s partners include Microsoft, Oracle, ADP, Sage, and SolidWorks, Dell and TouchSystems. TRAKware software allows any manufacturer with unique requirements of a custom engineered-to-order business, in any industry, to have total control of each and every order through the plant. Trakware is the leader in delivering innovative Manufacturing, Planning, and Control (MPC) solutions for project-based manufacturers.

Traditional MES systems, those used in a repetitive manufacturing environment, use individual part numbers to identify each permutation of a complicated assembly. According to Randy Richel, President of ETO MES leader, Trakware Systems, “The part number paradigm must be replaced with parametrics.”

In the current issue of The Machinist, leading manufacturing journalist TR Cutler profiles MES for Project-based manufacturers. According to Cutler, “Project-based or ETO (engineer-to-order) is commonly used to describe a custom manufacturing process, yet is rarely described with real world differentiation. Few MES (manufacturing execution systems solutions are specifically focused on meeting the needs of this challenging manufacturing market. Estimating costs to maintain a decent margin is often one of the great complexities in the ETO environment. Project-based cabinet makers, for example, may have never built a one-of-a-kind item before or have to add items once they are on the production floor, and have to accurately guess, all the possible costs variations.”