Finding the best machine shop software is like finding a needle in a haystack because there are so many diverse manufacturing solutions for different industries and practices, making it easy to get overwhelmed.

To help you cut through the noise and save time on your search, we reviewed the best machine shop management software. We’ll also look at the software’s key features, benefits and industry trends.

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Table of Contents

• Top Machine Shop Software
  • E2 Shop System
  • JobBOSS
  • MIE Trak Pro
  • Fulcrum
  • ProShop
• Key Features
• Benefits
• Trends
• Next Steps

Best Machine Shop Software

Now that you understand typical accessories, benefits and applicable trends, we can go over our top machine shop software list.

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E2 Shop System

This cloud and on-premise machine shop management software caters to job shops and make-to-order manufacturers. E2 Shop System offers implementation, training, support services, ISO system consulting and a customer community forum.

A preview of E2 Shop System’s interface.

Top Benefits

• Gain Real-Time Information: Access this solution on Android and iOS interfaces for real-time supervision instead of waiting to return to the office.
• Streamline Customer Interactions: Obtain service and support, eLearning and instant web training videos, unlimited virtual training, in-depth monthly newsletters and Shoptech community access to talk with other users.
• Centralize Workflows: Merge this system with QuickBooks to supervise accounting practices in one hub instead of pulling up numerous windows to review operations.
• Increase Product Quality: Access your shop’s protocols and obtain real-time information to enhance operations for better, high-quality products. Pre-set templates in the rapid documentation system help you align with quality certification requirements.
• Simplify Data Gathering: Chronicle time clock, touchscreen and manual timecard data inputting in one centralized setting. Leverage quality assurance and practices for clients, vendors, workers, facilities, tools, machinery and document numbering.

Primary Features

• Estimating: Draft quotes and estimates so you can email or fax them to plants for quicker customer availability. You can review thorough material, labor, and overhead expense information while pulling insights from matching jobs to standardize materials and labor. Adjust efficiency rates, scrap percentages and other factors by facility or machine to cipher estimates.
• Order Management: Transform estimates into trackable orders and pull finished products and materials from inventory to watch stock levels. Obtain alerts when customers purchase any low-stock items. Establish release dates and times for jobs and materials while adjusting materials, quantities and dates to meet evolving customer needs.
• Scheduling: Stay on your machine availability with a built-in scheduling whiteboard. Review down-to-the-minute monitoring of your occupied, idle or will-be-needed machinery to complete production parts. Flag high-priority tasks to mesh with the schedule and serve customer needs.
• Purchasing: Estimate scrap on each job, instantly send your request for quotations (RFQs) to multiple vendors and immediately connect purchasing needs to purchase orders. Track vendor deliveries and performance and review production records to superintend seasonal and client-demand inventory.
• Accounting: This feature provides check printing, standard and custom reports, and accounts payable and receivable extensions to exhibit cash flow projections. Access and review balance sheets, income statements and more.

Limitations

• It doesn’t include a payroll module.
• Experiences glitches and unexpected shutdowns.
• Scheduling attribute is clunky.

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JobBOSS

A cloud and on-premise solution, JobBOSS meets the needs of small, mid-sized, make-to-order and contract manufacturers. Its manufacturing modes include:

• Make-To-Stock
• Make-To-Order
• Assemble-To-Order
• Contract
• Mixed-Mode

An example of JobBOSS’s data collection tool.

Top Benefits

• Obtain Real-Time Production Insights: Compare estimates against actuals and adjust sell prices for repetitive orders. Maintain part histories for particular pieces and monitor job progress from the shop floor.
• Enhance Decision-Making: Craft tailored, up-to-date dashboards with this and other software information. Leverage filtering, sorting and exhibiting user-defined data to make better choices.
• Gain Project Insights: Utilize real-time transparency for vital protocols, data and job milestones to review project data.
• Improve Quality: Perform real-time quality tracking, prevent errors, record problems and receive corrective action suggestions to produce better products.
• Boost Efficiency: Perform automatic processes and supervise all phases, from quotes and orders to cash and more, for better productivity.

Primary Features

• Quote Processing: Formulate quotes, grab information from part history, copy proposals to make new orders and draft recurring estimates. Verify parts, materials and purchase history inventories during the quoting process.
• Order Processing: Overlook process jobs, assemblies, time and material jobs, and blanket orders with releases. Modify any job aspect, such as quantities and deadlines, even if you’re in the middle of production. You can handle recurring manufacturing through a standard operations file with default set-up and run-times to form routings.
• Scheduling/Shop Floor Control: Reply to customer requests utilizing real-time data for your shop floor capacity. Advocate what-if scenarios for capacity planning, job material planning and limited and infinite scheduling to administer capability.
• Material and Inventory Control: Establish automatic RFQs and purchase orders (POs) with time-phased material planning reports, study material supply, demand information and material-on-hand balance for specific jobs and survey material history to see how material costs changed.
• Shipping Management: Trace delivery schedules and evaluate shipment history. Produce shipping documents, including pack lists, shipping labels and bill of lading at all times. Track early or late shipments online, study delivery performance, superintend several shipping addresses for customers and document shipment data.

Limitations

• Searches go across the whole field instead of in order.
• Doesn’t reschedule job batches or ops.
• Has a steep learning curve.

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MIE Trak Pro

MIE Trak Pro is cloud and on-premise software serving small, mid-sized, make-to-order and contract manufacturers, job shops, and metal fabricators. It’s intended for aerospace, automotive, metal stamping, electronic, defense manufacturing and other industries.

TThis solution merges with other systems, including customer relationship management (CRM), electronic data interchange (EDI), MIE, computer-aided design (CAD), Converter-Solidworks CAD Converter and more.

A preview of MIE Trak Pro’s interface.

Top Benefits

• Improve Shop Floor Monitoring: Drag and drop jobs onto machines for shop floor scheduling. When jobs appear on the whiteboard, operators receive real-time notifications for better supervision.
• Streamline Time Tracking: Support paint lines and multi-person procedures, allowing one worker to clock in for a whole group. All employee data automatically saves when clocking out, and jobs are costed.
• Maintain Product Quality: Add sequence-level inspection requirements and permit items to input results from the kiosk tool. The quality control and kiosk features initiate shop quality control regulations.
• Save Time: Archive numerous packing slips and invoices in one shipping file to save time and increase efficiency.
• Strengthen Inventory Searches: Find stock by serial number, barcode, lot number and more to save time and determine your needs. Organize stock by coils, pounds, sheets and more.

Primary Features

• Quoting/Estimating: Develop quotes and analyze win/loss ratios by a particular customer or time frame. A win/loss ratio compares how often a patron earns or loses revenue. If you have a client with more wins than losses, that customer is worth keeping.
• Scheduling: Create employee and machinery schedules efficiently. The advanced planning schedule (APS) program utilizes drag-and-drop work orders, split work orders and whiteboard schedules. Instinctively schedule responsibilities to machines while also implementing backward scheduling.
• Inventory Control: Track all inventory pieces in your facility by monitoring receipts of materials, consumptions and deliveries to your clientele. Manage several inventory sites at once with the inventory control element.
• Purchase Order Management: Supervise work orders and purchases by watching procurement purchase order requests via MIE Kiosk and MIE Trak Pro. Implement material requirements planning (MRP), minimum and maximum purchasing and reorder points to devise purchase orders.
• Accounting: Obtain down payment, prepayment and drilled down source transactions for audit trails, financial reports, statements and real-time dashboards with the accounting attribute.

Limitations

• Lacks a free trial.
• The accounting tool doesn’t integrate with bank accounts and credit cards.
• Performance is sluggish and has too many bugs, glitches and error messages.

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Fulcrum

This cloud-based machine shop management software caters to the needs of small and medium-sized manufacturers. It aids manufacturing companies in workflow optimization and automated data collection.

An example of Fulcrum’s scheduling tools.

Top Benefits

• Improve Inventory Monitoring: Scan labels and QR codes to obtain real-time inventory item levels and pick and move stock from current areas. Implement mobile scanners from shipping/receiving departments so production managers ascertain specific locations.
• Evaluate Production Progress: Follow live production data for complete shop visualizations. Utilize in-process tracking following units created, elapsed time and other metrics to determine if the facility is on time, ahead or behind schedule.
• Enhance Workflow Consolidation: Integrate this machine shop software with other accounting, ERP and CRM systems for centralized operations.
• Find and Manage Documents: Gain a streamlined recordkeeping process. Use search and reporting tools to stow corrective/preventative action files, nonconformance reports, production part approval papers and other vital audit management forms.
• Reduce Trips: Analyze data batches and establish workstation order routes with existing capacity. You can also consolidate similar orders for fewer trips.

Primary Features

• Job Scheduling: Define rules for routing and scheduling assignments. Leverage a drag-and-drop scheduler to fix the production queue and work with customized job cards to offer essential assignment insights. Review a visual representation of each work center load to control new production schedules.
• Quoting: Work in several locations to construct, revise and trace quotes. Automate the administrative quoting portion and consider production capacity to give customers accurate lead times. Fulcrum can merge with emailing systems to automate the RFQ process.
• Job Costing: Contrast projected vs. actual costs to recognize which jobs are raking in the most revenue and which ones require a price change at the quoting level. Automation garners intel and distributes it to the proper system for recordkeeping. Analysis tools review market and internal business patterns.
• Job Tracking: Obtain a real-time snapshot of shop floor happenings to showcase when jobs are close to completion so you can offer accurate customer updates. Staff can search for production process jobs.
• Purchasing: Execute pattern recognition and trend analysis to estimate high-demand intervals to guarantee proactive purchasing. Catch and predict customer demand highs and lows, and upkeep inventory levels to meet project necessities.

Limitations

• Doesn’t offer a help desk for support tickets.

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ProShop

Lastly, this cloud and on-premise machine shop management software aligns with small and medium manufacturing companies for shop floors and offices. It can merge with ERP, MES and QMS software.

An example of ProShop’s inventory tools.

Top Benefits

• Access In-Depth Reporting: Access multiple dashboards for metrics like customer service, planning, shipping, inspection sales and finance. Alert all departments and managers of all users that log in to ProShop. You may also customize dashboards to meet a client’s specific needs.
• Evaluate Employee Tracking: Employees can clock in or out from any device with a password. Evaluate current and archived time punches for all hours. You may also review and approve missing punches if workers clock in incorrectly.
• Upkeep Communication: Initiate conversations with all user groups via links to the ideal pages. Subscribe or unsubscribe from discussions as necessary. Allocate automatic messages to notify managers and other users about NCR creations, over-the-target time tracking, pending documents for verification and other processes.
• Simplify Quoting: Make quotes with separate line items on non-repeatable expenses. Save quotes as PDFs for easy sharing.
• Manage Contacts: Supervise vital data for patrons, suppliers and more to maintain effective communication. Manage emails, phone numbers, notes, shipping addresses, receiving hours and more in one centralized hub.

Primary Features

• Estimation: Leverage elaborate fresh cost and time estimates for parts and assemblies or use the rapid estimate template system. Formulate process flows for estimated objects, including labor for set-up and cycle times, raw material out-of-pocket expenses, bill of materials (BOM) items and out-of-plant operations.
• Quoting: There are two options to create and format proposals. First, you can have a separate line time for non-recurring costs in the appearance of a non-recurring engineering (NRE) fee. Second, you can divide NRE costs into the unit price for each quantity for quoting.
• Scheduling: Manage job and machine statuses with the exact number of hours remaining on current jobs via work cells. Predict finish times per shift schedule. Advanced scheduling analytics can determine work order shipping dates or out-of-plant processes and when they need to return to your facility for additional procedures.
• Inventory Management: Review the amounts, values and locations of stock within your enterprise. Recognize work orders from any part number or assembly and evaluate the history of jobs shipped from inventory. Use traceable history for all components. Employ cost accounting for original prices and discounted values.
• Work Order (WO) Management: Pull up all documentation for current and past jobs. Access real-time job statuses in your plant. Attach data to different tasks, such as labor hours for time tracking, out-of-pocket dollars spent, completed part quantities at a particular stage, the exact location of out-of-plant workpieces and when they will return.

Limitations

• It comes as a suite, and you can’t buy individual models.
• Lengthy implementation process.
• Has a steep learning curve.

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Key Features

Although every software has unique tools, this software type shares standard features and requirements.

Remember that you need modules that align with your machine shop needs and operations. Machine shop software reviews suggest the following accessories:

• Estimating/Quoting: Develop exact, deliverable quotes and estimates for your clientele.
• Order Processing: Track and adjust materials, deadlines, quantities and more within orders thanks to an epitome order management/processing component.
• Scheduling: Obtain a complete snapshot of your machinery and employees for better resource management and job designations. Evaluate machinery statuses from active to idle.
• Inventory Management: Review current stock quantities to determine replenishment methods accurately.

Are you in need of more manufacturing features to compile your list? Check out our sophisticated requirements template.

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Primary Benefits

According to machine shop software comparisons, manufacturers reap many benefits from this application, including:

• Enhanced Accuracy: Elevate accuracies for jobs and shop maintenance. For example, most software can print an accurate report of the necessary expenses to make a specific part or product. You can also ascertain return on investments (ROIs) for completed jobs.
• Automated Procedures: Automate practically any task within your plant, including machine scheduling, estimate and quote generation, inventory management and more.
• Improved Interface: A user-friendly, easy-to-navigate machine shop program alleviates stress and time because it’s easy to learn. Practically anyone in your factory can utilize this system. User-friendly tools can boost production rates, thus keeping your patrons satisfied and your revenue high.

Trends

There are several new manufacturing trends and technologies that you may want to implement in your operations. Here are a few machine shop software trends to consider.

Paperless Supply Chain

Track and document supply chain steps digitally instead of through a paper trail. Monitoring supply chains online comes in handy instead of locating scattered papers or cluttered filing cabinets.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Powered Analytics

AI software and analytics allow you to accurately and efficiently produce high-caliber products and workpieces by studying materials, size, weight, strength, manufacturing methods, cost restrictions and other parameters.

AI can determine which machines need the whole maintenance process or simple tune ups. The popularity of this trend is likely why Report Linker predicts the global AI market could reach $459.3 billion by 2030.

Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Technology

CNC tools such as mills, drills, water jet cutters, lathes and more automatically carry out their tasks via computer. A proper machine shop management application can integrate with or already possess CNC technology for enhanced output.

This trend isn’t going anywhere, which is probably why Research and Markets predict the global CNC market will reach $115.6 billion by 2028.

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Next Steps

Picking the ideal machine shop software can be complicated, but hopefully, our picks, similar features, benefits and trends can shine some light on your quest.

Review our in-depth comparison report for more features and insights on manufacturing ERP. Remember to choose the application that best aligns with your manufacturing needs.

What problems do you want to solve with machine shop software? Let us know in the comments!