What Is Manufacturing Software?
Manufacturing ERP software is like a helpful assistant for companies that make things. It helps plan and do manufacturing projects by keeping track of suppliers, materials, and how much it costs to make things. It also helps in keeping good relationships with customers. This kind of software does a lot of things, from managing money for big international companies to organizing schedules for small local metal shops. Whether it's a big or small system, manufacturing software makes work easier, helps get things done faster, and makes it better to manage everything from designing a product to planning how to make it and even taking care of it when it's out in the world.
Common Features of Manufacturing Software System
- Material requirements planning (MRP)- Automates the front end of the production process. Functions include planning and costing of materials, labor and equipment; automated quoting; order processing and resource scheduling . Systems should also process advanced shipping notification from suppliers to reduce receiving errors and report any changes in cycle counts for inventory management.
- Manufacturing execution system (MES)- Controls the actual production phase and shop floor operations. Functions include work-in-progress reporting, production tracking, labor tracking, equipment utilization and scrap reporting.
- Manufacturing accounting- Manages all of the financial transactions and operations for a company. In addition to the traditional accounting functions of general ledger, accounts payable and receivable, inventory and payroll, the accounting application includes support for sales orders, purchase orders, change orders, work-in-progress reports and job costing modules.
- Production planning & scheduling- Creates production schedules, including reviewing inventory levels, tracking lead times and making build-versus-buy decisions. This is a subset of MRP; planning and scheduling does not generally include automatic ordering or inventory tracking functionality.
- Product life cycle management (PLM)- Organizes all manufacturing information around to the designing, producing, supporting and disposing of manufactured goods. May include computer-aided design software, bill of materials data and document management.