The Best Job Shop Software Of 2024

E2 Shop System

Utilizing cloud and on-premise deployability, E2 Shop System by Shoptech is an excellent choice for small to medium-sized job shops and make-to-order manufacturers. Some of its key features are job costing, job tracking, shipping and accounting.

An example of E2 Shop System’s scheduling feature.

Schedule with Ease

E2’s scheduling feature extends an ingrained Scheduling Whiteboard that paints a clear picture of your available machinery with immediate monitoring. It informs you about the status of your machines as occupied, idle or will be needed in your production line. If you own a camera manufacturing plant and you have a big order that requires intense use of your drill machines, you’ll immediately know which press is idle so you can reduce downtime and fulfill your orders more efficiently.

A Bookkeeper’s Paradise

Wish you could always know the financial health of your camera plant? The dry spells, peaks and in-betweens of your profits on a daily, monthly and yearly basis? Wish granted. E2’s accounting element provides transparency of your finances with balance sheets, income statements, cash flow reports and more. The element also administers check printing, 200 standard reports to choose from and painless customization options. Additionally, it contains readable cash flow projections with seamless accounting tools, which allows you to easily track the financial standing of your manufacturing plant.

Keep Orders Precise

Turn your estimates into trackable orders with E2’s order management feature. The system permits you to set release dates and times for specific materials or jobs that come into your camera factory. It also enables you to pluck finished products and materials from inventory to monitor its stock levels and notifies you of any product shortages. Lastly, this feature makes changes to materials, quantities and dates to meet the ever-changing needs of your customers.

Estimate Like a Pro

E2’s estimation component develops quotes and has the capability to email or fax them to the workstation, providing customers with easy access. Managers can quickly view elaborate information on material, labor and overhead costs. This component also recollects data for identical jobs to set a standard of estimates for materials and labor. Additionally, you’re able to distribute materials during the estimation process, constantly keeping you in the loop with your inventory.

JobBOSS

JobBOSS by ECI Software Solutions serves small to mid-sized make-to-order and contract manufacturers. Both its cloud and on-premise deployment options come with a string of modules including order procession, scheduling/shop floor control, and shipping and cost analysis. On-demand webinars and one-on-one demos along with support for implementation, training, consulting and more are also available.

An example of JobBOSS scheduling and shop floor control tool.

Simple Order Operations

You’re fulfilling an order for three dozen of your ice cream-shaped polaroid cameras and a customer changes their mind to only five cameras. Don’t blow a fuse. JobBOSS’s order processing feature can adjust changes to any order such as updated deadlines and quantities — even if it’s in the middle of a job. This component also deals with complicated aspects of jobs such as various run-time methods and overlapping operations. A default set-up operations file on this feature can handle your repetitive manufacturing processes.

Quote Classification

JobBOSS’s quote processing module permits you to create quotes. With this functionality, you can also inspect information from part history and copy quotes to create new orders and generate repeat quotes. This module lets you review the inventory of parts, materials and purchase history while conducting the quoting process. This tool can also identify the cost of parts and send out numerous quotes.

Regulate Your Shop Floor

This software’s scheduling and shop floor control tool provides everything you need to stay on top of your tasks so you can meet your quota and keep your customers satisfied. This feature is equipped with a scheduling graph to provide visibility of your available materials, standard work center load and job performances. This tool also drafts what-if scenarios for capacity planning, orchestrates material planning for any job and calculates infinite or finite schedules to manage your capacity.

Coordinate Shipments Accordingly

Shipping your cameras to your customers is just as important as building them in your facility. In addition to tracking delivery schedules and inspecting shipment history, the shipping management element allows you to muster relevant documents like pack lists, shipping labels and bill of lading at the time of shipment. You can also track late or early shipments online, study delivery performance, chronicle ship data and administer multiple ship addresses for customers.

Inventory Management

The material and inventory control capability authorizes you to set automatic RFQs and purchase orders employing time-phased reports for materials. It audits your inventory supply, demand information and material-on-hand balance for all of your camera orders. This tool can even review material history to display how the costs of materials have transformed over time.

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MIE Trak Pro

MIE Solutions’ MIE Trak Pro is designed for small to mid-sized manufacturers that specialize in make-to-order and contract projects. It is also a viable solution for other job shops and fabricators. This cloud and on-premise software can integrate with CRM, EDI, MIE, payroll and more. Software assets include quote generation, advance planning and scheduling (APS), inventory management and more.

An example of the MIE Trak Pro’s purchase management tool.

Profitable Quote System

The quoting and estimation tool cultivates and arranges quotes and win/loss ratios by specific customers and time frames. Win/Loss ratio tracks the wins and losses of profits from deals made with customers or partnerships with other companies. If your camera plant has a win/loss ratio of 34/21 with a modeling company, you’re gaining more profits than losses. But if your ratio is 12/30, you’re losing money. This tool can help you determine which of your customers and clients are worth doing business with. It can also facilitate inquiries into sales order conversions, personalized formulas, quota history and other quoting tasks.

Numerous Reports to Choose From

Creating reports has never been easier. The reporting capability offers more than 500 standard reports and more than 200 templates to choose from for data collection analysis, sales analysis, KPIs, slow-moving item reports and more.  This tool also advocates in-line report modification and grants you the ability to download reports as an Excel spreadsheet, PDF or image so you can email it to your boss, CEO or president for review. You can also create bar and pie charts.

Organized Bookkeeping

The accounting feature provides inputs on prepayments and down payments while administering dashboards, financial reporting and statements. Users can also benefit from tools designed to facilitate budgeting, account segmentation, infinite data history access and general ledger account code refining.

Maintain Purchase Distributions

The purchase order management tool allows you to manage procurement purchase order requests on the shop floor and in the office. MRP, reorder points, minimum and maximum purchasing functionalities are used to automatically establish purchase orders. Other noteworthy capabilities of this tool include vendor delivery, performance tracking and reporting, and serial number tracking.

Instant Scheduling

This scheduling element seamlessly creates schedules for employees and machines. You can run it as either a whiteboard scheduler or an APS system. Under the APS system, you can craft work orders with a drag-and-drop component or split work orders however you need them. It instantly updates scheduling for jobs, machines and employees.

Fulcrum

Atlas Solution’s Fulcrum is a cloud-based software that serves small and medium manufacturers. This software can integrate with third-party solutions in accounting, CRM, ERP and others. Its capabilities include job costing, barcode scanning, purchasing and more.

An example of Fulcrum’s barcode scanning tool.

Full Shop Floor Visibility

The job tracking tool gives a live picture of everything that’s happening on your shop floor to display when a specific job will be completed so you can give customers accurate deadlines. This tool displays the next step in the process for incomplete jobs as well as give operators the ability to close and reassign jobs. For instance, you have an order for two dozen heart-shaped cameras with a 30-50mm lens, but it’s only halfway completed. You could check how long it will take to finish the rest of the order and, if necessary, adjust your machinery and employees accordingly to finish the order.

Maintain Your Materials

Fulcrum’s barcode scanning feature permits you to scan labels or QR codes on your materials so you can easily count your inventory levels. This feature also allows you to pick and move materials from their location.

Identify Profitable Jobs

The job costing element reveals both the projected and actual costs of jobs to determine which jobs are more profitable. It may be more profitable to create lightweight digital cameras instead of the ladybug-printed Polaroids you were planning to manufacture. This tool can also determine which orders require a price change at the quoting level.

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Profit Predictions

Applying trend analysis and pattern detection, Fulcrum’s purchasing component can foresee highs and lows in demand and conserve inventory levels to ensure your materials are always properly stocked. You might have a lull in selling cameras in January because the holidays are over, but you could get a spike in early February because of Valentine’s Day. This tool can predict things like seasonality and other patterns that could affect your sales, so you can properly prepare your facility.

Job Management

Fulcrum’s job scheduling tool suggests possible solutions for routing and scheduling jobs. You can use the drag-and-drop scheduler to adjust your production queue with detailed cards for each job. All your camera orders from heart-shaped Polaroids to 600-1500mm telephoto lenses will be organized and always available when you need them.

ProShop

Adion Systems’ ProShop utilizes the cloud and on-premise deployability for small and medium-sized manufacturers to manage offices as well as shop floors. It offers integrations with other third-party solutions designed for ERP, MES and QMS. Some of its capabilities include inventory management, job costing, estimation and more.

An example of ProShop’s inventory management tool.

Keep Up with Inventory

This inventory management feature is embedded in the parts and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) components. In addition to displaying the number of materials your facility has, it can show you the value and location of your materials. It can pinpoint work orders from any part number given and trace the history of any job that was shipped from inventory as well as where every component of your products came from.

Immediate Cost Updates

ProShop’s job costing tool records spending on all work orders and shows the progress made against your production targets. As an order progresses, it instantly adds costing details and provides a snapshot of your time and budget.

Spot-On Estimations

The estimation tool leverages its forecasting capabilities to predict costs and timeframes for assembling parts from scratch or with its Rapid Estimate Templates. This tool can determine labor time for set-up and cycle times, out-of-pocket costs for raw materials, bill of materials items and out-of-plant processes. You can also alter profit margins, sales commissions and overhead burden rates and modify direct labor rates for every process.

Stress-Free Job Classification

Use the scheduling trait to view how many hours are left to finish any given project, providing you with projections of whether or not your work will be completed on schedule. Refined scheduling systematics compute dates for work orders that need to be shipped for the customer, out-of-plant processes or if they need to return to your facility for additional processes. This functionality also allows you to color-code your work orders.

Dashboards Galore

ProShop is equipped with 25 dashboards that you can modify to meet the specific needs of individual clients. Dashboards include customer service, shipping, inspection, sales, finance and more. If you need to see the status of a specific order, there’s a dashboard for that.