Organization - How to track orders?

General Discussion
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it would be great to have tracking software to follow a boards progress. NEV had a great DOS program written 15 years ago that just involved daily updating. however he never changed it to operate on windows

Again I would emphasize that 'tracking software" is only going to be as good as the info put into it. Somebody has to correctly update it every single workday. Once it goes out of the old 94% real-time accuracy you are in a danger zone. Remember also that if your system includes tracking raw material orders you will have to update that too…which may be as simple as entering info when something changes, or may wind up being an entry every day if your system is funky. Figure if you are running 50-90 boards a week out the door, you probably have 2-4 times that in process (?), all of which need tracking. If you do volume stock business you can “batch them”, but probably can’t do that for customs. This can still be a great improvement, but you need to realistically assess how much time it will take.

You mention that Nev had an MS-DOS program written 15 years ago…I would really advise against getting anywhere near something like that here in 2007. A company I worked for did that, and it was the most arcane, maddening, antiquated, and dumb program purchase decision I’ve ever seen. They had to hire full time experienced people to train folks how to use it, to write patches and fixes and specific needs, it was the most un-intuitive P.O.S. I have ever seen. Which leads me to another warning…

Thre are fairly complicated Material Requirement Planning programs…there is a newer hipper acronym for something similar now that I can’t recall…a lot of them sound great because they fully integrate all the accounting, financial, purchase orders, planning, tracking, inventory control, costing elements. Many of them, and certainly the older ones (think DOS based), require you do complete a series of steps before the system will allow you to move on. In the aforementioned software at a place I used to work at it frequently meant having to work through 4-6 screens of blinking fields before it would let you do a simple task…something that maybe we used to just write a couple of lines on paper to cover. Supposedly the benefit of all this was instant access to track information…just look at a screen. But the endless gyrations made keeping it up to date a huge hassle, and created departmental antagonism. What it really was good for was having Big Brother look in over your shoulders…

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i currently just print out several copies of my daily ordersheet… then sign everything off as i shape it. we sign everything in at the factory and out again when its done-feraldave For me, it might be useful to track a few typical boards for final cost analysis. One of each type and construction. I doubt I would want to use that program full time because it might turn into a second part time job keeping up with it. I kind of like the pencil and paper. I do like it’s invoicing, tax forms, online banking, and other stuff -Ozzy

Here are the makings of a workable manufacturing order system, generated by a computer but basically a “manual” system. Since the original topic was tracking orders - basically “order status” - maybe this is the most pertinent. If you have manufacturing orders out in the shop in various places with work in process, with a control area to show what is in outside process (ie. glass shop), waiting to start, etc. you will have hard copies to look at and get your status off of. Another nifty tool is to have manual or computerized Milestone charts, which basically detail all the steps of the work, can include projected start and completion dates of each process as well as the job, but don’t get into the detail depth of the manufacturing orders. In a manual system you could carry a clipboard with all the work in process milestones out to the shop, and update it from the manufacturing orders. That way you would have updated info all in one place, “as of 5 p.m. the previous day”, that kind of thing. Again I think Microsoft Project Manager does this, but you can make your own with a copier.

Getting down and costing every order is the way to find out where your time and money goes. By optimizing that you can increase your productivity, increase your profits, and increase your quality of life by getting better control of your time. Big companies with lots of employees also track the labor time as part of this, which is probably overkill for small manufacturers , not to mention being a general pain in the ass.

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Let me know what you guys would like to see in the app… Nothing too fancy please Im just a man and a dog and the dog does the dev work. Some of you other IT boffs can contribute. My input would be that it would be nice to update to the web on the progress of orders that way you can dedicate your time to shaping and not answering the phone -Swifty

There’s a great idea…applicable to most levels of surfboard manufacturing…a true Swaylock’s beauty…

Nels

22

i just started playing around with a copy of QuickBooks Premier. it can be customized for industry-specific applications, including manufacturing, and it fully integrates inventory, ordering, and all the financials. could definitely be worth considering.

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I didn’t even know about Premier. I guess I should discount my input somewhat because my version of Basic is probably ten years old. 5.0 I think. I seriously doubt that I would want to spend $100 or $300 or whatever it might be, but SunsetSoul or others might. It’s just not worth it to me and my purposes.

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$399 - full support big company

http://quickbooks.intuit.com/product/accounting_software/premier_manufacturing_wholesale_software/?priorityCode=3949500000

Freeware

standalone or excel-based

http://www.download.com/MRP-Excel-zip/3000-2067_4-5596234.html?tag=lst-0-2

http://www.download.com/PIMS-Classic/3000-2227_4-10494966.html?tag=lst-3-1

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…

There are fairly complicated Material Requirement Planning programs…there is a newer hipper acronym for something similar now that I can’t recall…a lot of them sound great because they fully integrate all the accounting, financial, purchase orders, planning, tracking, inventory control, costing elements. Many of them, and certainly the older ones (think DOS based), require you do complete a series of steps before the system will allow you to move on…

Quote:

Let me know what you guys would like to see in the app… Nothing too fancy please Im just a man and a dog and the dog does the dev work. Some of you other IT boffs can contribute. My input would be that it would be nice to update to the web on the progress of orders that way you can dedicate your time to shaping and not answering the phone -Swifty

There’s a great idea…applicable to most levels of surfboard manufacturing…a true Swaylock’s beauty…

Nels

Material requirements planning begat material resource planning begat manufacturing resource planning begat enterprise resource planning, ntm recent variations like just in time procurement/delivery. Let no one claim that the IT industry is acronym deprived (or isn’t full of JIT)… Those DOS programs you mention had bigger and often older siblings on midrange and mainframe computers (I once earned a living pushing around IBM MAPICS II - Manufacturing, Accounting and Production Information Control System - sounds like you had similar experience, probably from the other side of the conference table) Used correctly, they could actually provide feedback useful to management to improve processes. Abused (more typical) they provided impressive looking but essentially useless reports thousands of pages long showing assembly blowouts nested umpty-dumpty levels deep that no one would ever actually have time to evaluate. I have a problem visualizing multiple independent parties involved in manufacturing a (relatively) low volume item being both able and willing to supply the input for a formal automated system in as accurately and timely a manner as required for useful results unless either all of the participants were muy simpatico or the controlling party had a large enough share of their business that they could ill afford not to.

If I correctly saw some interest here expressed in a collaborative, web-based project management system, I recommend looking at dotProject. It’s open source (free), but requires a web server environment with MySQL and PHP support (preferably under Linux/Apache, but they have added Windows/IIS support) I evaluated this several years ago for IT project management, it was quite good and the volume of add-ons was high - they might even have an MRP extension by now (whatever that means :slight_smile:

http://www.dotproject.net/

-Samiam

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Material requirements planning begat material resource planning begat manufacturing resource planning begat enterprise resource planning, ntm recent variations like just in time procurement/delivery

Yes! MRP went to ERP…I liked to call that “Urp” because it sounded like vomiting…Just In Time had come through before the others…flowed down to the job shop level from prime and sub-prime contractors. We got into the other stuff once we were dealing directly with original manufacturers. In with all that they were tossing “Lean manufacturing” concepts, probably the best ideas for shop/factories on our level, but typically the Bigs liked the flashiest of the ideas…Kaizen events that shut production for a full week and reconfigured the shop flow, irregardless of the fact that we were a glorified job shop and couldn’t afford the time or cost to move equipment around for very limited, fairly handcrafted production runs.

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Those DOS programs you mention had bigger and often older siblings on midrange and mainframe computers (I once earned a living pushing around IBM MAPICS II - Manufacturing, Accounting and Production Information Control System - sounds like you had similar experience, probably from the other side of the conference table)

MAPICS…Might Awful Planning Integration Cntrol System…you hit it right on. The parent company bought MAPICS around 1998 and is still struggling to run things…they bought this as they computerized companies. The parent company was big enough to probably use it, they also sold material so the inventory control part was useful for them, …but WTF…I question most of what they did. It was instant death for our company, which ran between 15-30 people. At one point while trying to integrate MAPICs we literally had only 2 more production people that administration people…and we would get crap for that…the usual thing with companies…they would have whole departments for things one person would combine 2-3 job duties and they would still complain.

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Used correctly, they could actually provide feedback useful to management to improve processes. Abused (more typical)

Management liked to think everybody was lazy and stupid and they wanted to check into things at will without knowledge of employees. At certain levels they could even enter the system and change things for us…a far cry from earlier days when I would get called on the carpet for having orders way past due and be presented with photocopies of purchase orders showing the delinquent delivery date, with my signiture on the acknowledgemnt…typically the dumb f@#ks who would try that wouldn’t remember that I had the original without their obvious erasings.

Nels

27

Why not use SAP or that thing from IBM… Then you can do everything in it, it just has to be configured and programmed by 200 consultants that charge $200+ an hour.

I hate that kind of software. For a small time business, stick to something simple.

regards,

Håvard

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I hate that kind of software. For a small time business, stick to something simple.

Hey…I don’t work there any more! Honestly I felt like I could do better with a pen and notebook. And frequently did, since I had the production responsibilities. But in that case things got too big to run out of the pocket and something had to be done. Unfortunately it was done poorly, poor choices were made, and an IT infrastructure developed…God, everybody must have stories like this now…if you grow big enough it’s like a sci-fi movie…by the time I left the Human Resources people and the IT people basically ran the company with 0% customer responsibility…I used to wonder if any of them realized that what they did didn’t earn a single dollar…they mistook the notion that eventually because they controlled the ability to move any project along that they were the whole show…

Not a burn on anybody in those businesses…just one example of how it could go wrong.

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Then you can do everything in it, it just has to be configured and programmed by 200 consultants that charge $200+ an hour

Same with website programming…keep it simple…I really think you have a great opportunity there Havard…I’m still pondering that…you wouldn’t absolutely need whole shipping containers, just a big hardsided surfboard case that would hold 2-3 boards…you might literally plant the seeds that change the face of Scandinavian surfing…and do it this year!

Nels

29

Thanks for all the feedback. It is really great to see all the opinions. Well, I have been bringing up the topic locally and a few things are consistent. Everyone wants to save time on the management side of things (order tracking, accounting, etc…) so shaping time is increased, improve customer relationships, and report/record output (profits, pictures, etc…)

A true ERP and/or PM software is out of the question. Either they are too large, too cumbersome, learning curves are unwarranted, pricey …

I proposed a small application designed to just achieved a designated list of specific functions for the shaper in mind.

Some of the ideas we have been throwing around.

  1. Simple Order Tracking - an interface where the user can track the customer, what is being worked on, and the stage it’s in. The stages are will be simple based on the assembly (type of board being built)

1a. Assembly ties into COG - cost of goods

1b. Customer tracking - All relevant information only, notes, etc … (how many times? where is that cell number again?)

Another idea came up here: Pre-order fulfillment on the web. A simple form that populates the database with all the customer's relevant         info, and a basic idea on what type of board that they want. This provides a better starting point for the shaper and improves the                 decision making process by the customer.

  1. Simple Invoicing - invoicing will be tied into tracking, internet payments …

  2. Simple Reporting - how much am I making on my boards?

Is this a need to the shaping world? Who would pay? and how much?

Obviously, there is more to think about and such - some of the shapers that are running shaping as a big business have no need for this, as the hobbyists. But, what about the shapers in between?

Thanks.

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Hi Mate, have you had any luck yet with the kind of software you were after? im interested in that kind of thing too. i would like to be involved in the design path of some custom built software to do that kind of thing. i have several good ideas and close to 20 years experiance with production board building…we currently used quick books for accounting but it falls short in the order tracking etc. maybe a online orderform could capture the data and follow a board thru its procesess. i will attach a pdf fillable order that i made… maybe someone could create a database from the fields inc board length and glassing to accomodate meters of glass used, fin system etc, so that you could get weekly totals required from x number of order forms etc…

m mm to big to attach so hopefully you can download from my blog url

http://web.mac.com/diversesurf

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Gawd…I hadn’t seen this one, but it does bring back some memories. Horrible memories, to be exact.

Y’see, once opon a time I was a techie, not the happy clamdigger I am today. And I was offered a gig doing tech writing and tech support for a small software company that did ( dum dum da dum dum da daaaah ) project planning and management software. It was a while ago, DOS and the software itself was written in COBOL…yeah, I really am that old.

Well, the tech support was interesting. I probably got the gig 'cos I would answer my phone at 3AM when my buddy ( who was the company, essentially) called, having done a particular module, and wanted to have a beer. Programmers tend to get kinda disconnected from the rest of the universe, you see.

Yeah, the stuff actually worked. If you were big enough to justify having it, plus the IT people to keep it running and the data entry types to fill in the blanks. But it was kinda complex in some ways. And when you have people whose primary job was doing something, hassling them with jerking around with project software was definitely slowing them down with doing what they were good at. And every department wound up with somebody whose main function in life was dealing with the project management software.

Now, this was bad for a couple of reasons. It was time pi$$ed away, and it either took a perfectly good worker and wasted them at the computer or else it put some data entry dweeb in de-facto charge of a manufacturing step. Either way, a waste of money and resources.

And it hasn’t gotten any easier since, so far as I can see. Though my life has, definitely. I no longer have a telephone, for instance. Which is a good analogy. How much time do you pi$$ away on answering phone calls rather than doing what ya do well? Right - the telephone is primarily a machine for annoying people, it has no other major function, which is why I don’t have one any more. Life is too f#cking short for that cr@p. Once you understand that, you’re much of the way there.

Solo had it right. KISS principle. Keep It Simple. While it’s possible to track every step of the process with a computer, why bother? Especially if you only want to track the occasional board for cost and maybe time-flow purposes. You will then need a computer or terminal ( gawd, that shows my age right there) at just about every manufacturing station, plus some sort of way of dealing with it like touch screens or similar. Oh, and imagine the one in the glassing room - heh- how long would a touch screen last there, forget about a keyboard. Or the airbrusher: “Whoaaa, duuuude, I’m not into, like, all this, like, technology, duuude”. You see where I’m going with this?

This is a pain in the tail, plus it gets expensive, plus it takes up room in your production areas, plus it makes your shapers, glassers,sanders, polishers, etc into data entry people. Which they may not be able to do, let alone want to do. It messes with their heads, breaks their concentration, all sorts of stuff that is bad for a skilled worker who is in the groove of production.

Plus, per surfboard, with some kinda scant margins to begin with, is it worth it? We are not talking about building a multi-million dollar airplane here, right? The per-job overhead in time and money for tracking is awfully hard to justify.

So, a better system needs tro be thought up. One that doesn’t need expensive hardware, operator training, a whole lot of data entry or any of this stuff.

A modest proposal, then. Break out a clipboard and a sheet of white paper, plus maybe a ruler. Design yourself a multi-part form, where theres sections for specs and maybe where the guy who does that particular thing or step can initial it, date it and maybe comment a little on it, from whoever took the order all the way through to whoever boxed it for shipping.

Trot that down to the local Staples or whatever, have a bunch of them made up. Buy some cheap clipboards to go with 'em. Have the forms numbered too. Those numbers become your board serial numbers. Then you have all the info you need, you can even ( with the appropriate parts blanked out, like you see on some invoices) have a copy for the customer or other end-user.

Now, whoever shuttles boards from one station to the next, and there usually is some kid in tennis shoes who does that, they get the additional responsibility of keeping the clipboards ( or forms at least) with the particular board they go with. Buy some cheap clocks if you have to, to get times things get done. Even if it’s the times a batch of boards gets done. Wanna know where a particular board or order is at any given time? Well, Tennis Shoe Kid can go and look and report back. Or anybody else, for that matter.All ya gotta be able to do is read and know where in the factory you are.

And if you then want to computerise it, fine. THEN you have somebody who enters all the data, from the form, once the thing is done.

Okay, ordering. Online, phone, mail, walk-in. Whoever does your front end office stuff handles that, you know, The Order Chick. Takes the info from whatever source, fills out the form. That form has a serial number ( which Tennis Shoe Kid can track ) and a date and customer name and so on. And the office/orders keeps a copy, for the annoying customers who call back twice a day asking ‘is it ready yet??’. Be evil- send the customer the serial number and have them try to find it. Or be nice, have a database, and it can be a simple one, on the Order Desk computer, so Order Chick can look it up fast if she has to. Gives her something to do when she isn’t doing her nails at her desk.

Simple. Cheap. No less foolproof than anything else. Very little training required - if your manufacturing staff needs to be taught how to use a ballpoint pen or pencil or crayon, you may want to be asking yourself some questions about that. Every board gets tracked, through every step. Hell, the customer even gets to say 'Wow, man, do you know who glassed my board? It was XYZ, you can see his initials here on the form, man. ’

This maye even be too good. A bit of history: back in the ‘golden age’ of surfboard making, a lot of boards went through with no numbers in some factories. They got sold out the back door, cash money, and the tax people didn’t have to know about it. While I am not suggesting that anybody here and now may be pocketing a little cash and not telling the government about it, well, you may want to leave that door open too, y’know?

Anyhow - that’s my take on it. Good luck. If ya want more, well, ya can’t call me, now can ya…

doc…

32

Attached is an Excel expense tracker I came up with a while back. This only tracks expenses and does not track orders through a process but it may give you some ideas for your .pdf system. I created this because I had no idea how much it cost me to make my first few boards. Also please note that I only make about 4-5 boards a year for myself and friends so your production expenses and amounts will be quite different. Also, I am well aware the my expenses are high, and I am not as conservative with resin and supplies as a professional would be but since I only make a few boards as a hobby it really doesn’t matter.

With that said, the idea is very simple…just use the 3 drop down menus at the top to select blank size, board size, and board type and everything else will calculate automatically. You can modify the cost by adding any misc. costs as well. One difference I noticed when comparing to your sheet…I only use future fins and longboard boxes as opposed to your variety.

So far this has worked fine for my purposes, but I’m not sure if it would help you in a production environment. Let me know what you think.

Wait…How do I get an Excel file to attach?

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i’m surprised no one mentioned Peachtree? It’s better than quickbooks in my opinion.

you can produce quotes to email - client accepts your terms, click a button and you create a sales Order - you then can track your orders on screen or printed reports – you can export data easily to excel to manipulate, just click. when your order is ready to be shipped, you then invoice/process credit card on the spot ( again you can email invoice - it produces pdf files)

It’s customizable for retail/wholesale/production/services.

For a small to medium sized business i recommend highly.