Barcode Tracking system and Job Scheduling GUI for workers? Pleasee Help.

Hello everyone, a new member here. I'm an engineering grad student from NC State and i'm currently interning for a small jobshop (10 employees). We are trying to solve 2 major problems:

1) Implement an automatic job/inventory tracking system (ex: barcode/RFID) to keep better track of work orders
2) Eliminate the current paper based Manufacturing Plan & Inventory recording system by providing a GUI for machinists to easily access MOP's and QA data for a particular order.

As an intern, i'm guessing an ERP like FishBowl or JobBOSS would provide help but i want some feedback from forums like this. Can anyone guide me towards a fit solution available in today's world? Your experience and guidance is greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance

ERP systems are a good step to business management. But they are only as useful as the data you have to input into them, and the continual monitor and maintenance of that data.

Do you have a budget for this project? One thing I have encountered with very small shops is that they do not have the budget to roll out an ERP system. Both for implementing and maintaining.

There are some low budget options for inventory and job tracking. It can be as simple as an excel database. For the machinist, if a well organized server exist, putting a computer at every work station is an easy way to get away from paper and still have access to all the informaion needed.

Can you tell us a little more about the shop? How many machines and what kind of machines? How many jobs are processed a week? What market do you manufacture for? ect.

The budget is not a problem, my company realizes the importance of having a system which would help them in keeping track of their production runs and also help in future ISO certification.
The shop refurbishes broken wind turbine parts like brake pads, yaw claw fixtures etc for windfarms in the US. They also function as a job shop (which is 80% of their production runs) for local customers. This mixture of workorders (about 450 different parts) has created a lot of problems in creating an efficient schedule as the lead times vary from 1 day to 6 weeks in general. They try to reduce running costs by stocking up inventories for most hot parts, but these numbers aren't updated constantly as they rely on their workers filling paper inventory forms. They have 3 HAAS CNC lathe machines,3 HAAS CNC mills and 6 other smaller machines for grinding, welding etc.The no of jobs per week can be generally from 1-4 depending on the customer order(is it a hot order or not), their inventory levels for that part.

I would avoid the barcode thing if you can get a touch screen with a login system. Scanners will be annoying and from experience most likely despised by the guys actually doing the work. A touch screen can be bought cheap and if mounted to wall in a central location easily accessed and looked at by management.

I respectfully disagree with Whysosharp in regards to barcode scanning. Touch screens can be effective as can barcode scanning, but I think at this stage with our limited knowledge of the shop and your process, it's too soon to make a determination on which one is best for you and the company. The hardware costs involved in barcode scanning will obviously outweigh the costs for touch screen capabilities, but it creates a more scalable process if the company is expecting growth in the future.

There are options available to you in solving job tracking, inventory, and production scheduling that don't involve purchasing an entire ERP suite. As I'm sure you've realized, getting an ERP system would likely involve changing your company's processes end-to-end, including accounting (unless you're integrating with whatever accounting platform you're currently using). You should look for a modular software company that is able to deploy modules versus an entire system.

Something to keep in mind, is JobBOSS was developed in the 80's. While it's obviously seen changes and improvements to its architecture, there are more modern, intuitive, and flexible options out there. I'd suggest looking into: Fulcrum Job Scheduling for Manufacturing - Atlas Solutions Software : Fulcrum Scheduling

At a previous shop we used Quick Books and E2. When the material was recieved we would take the material paperwork and log it into the system immediately. Along with finished products logging it immediately into E2 to show how many we have in stock vs the new purchase order. Also you can create job scheduling via customer or due dates depending on if you know how long each job will take to make.