Looking for easy/free Inventory System

Hello,

At out university we have a small machine shop (8 milling machines). To manage our inventory (tools, mills, oils per machine) we are looking for software to do this, preferable free.Most of the systems I find online are very complex (production planning, finances etc) but we are only interested in inventory management. Anybody who can advise us someting?

Microsoft Excel and youtube.

I just did this last night for all my drills/taps.

How to create simple IN and OUT Inventory System in Excel - YouTube

I still had the video up.

buy excel, it works fine, have it open and update often as you use it. without use, it becomes obsolete.

I used to use Part&Vendors which I really liked but they ended selling it a few years ago. Just looked it up and saw another company can import P&V files to a program called MiniMRP which might be a good solution for you at about $200. Parts&Vendors was an awesome program, but my last two employers went AllOrders which is about $800 a seat but was a very good program for us. Especially after we got assembly BOMs to import directly from SolidWorks. Huge time savings when a BOM has 500+ unique parts and a lot of them are cut from lengths of all different sizes.

Excel or Google Sheets would probably work just fine, but if you do want a system try Canvus, basic but very funtional, and free.

Small Business Inventory | Free Online Inventory System | Inventory Management

KevinS94 said:

Hello,

At out university we have a small machine shop (8 milling machines). To manage our inventory (tools, mills, oils per machine) we are looking for software to do this, preferable free.Most of the systems I find online are very complex (production planning, finances etc) but we are only interested in inventory management. Anybody who can advise us someting?

Click to expand...

Kevin,

Concur with others on the thread - Excel with some formulas are your best bet for a pilot test.

Here are a couple articles on basic inventory management models that are the foundation for lots of the expensive software solutions out there. The formulas are easy to and to Excel to build a lightweight model fit for your specific purpose. Worth trying out before diving into anything more complex.

Articles below:

Inventory Management Explained With Nunchucks - Part One
Inventory Management Explained With Nunchucks - Part Two

Today I'm putting together a post on the Q/R inventory model which is a useful blend of the Newsvendor and EOQ models touched on in the previous posts. Check back later today or tomorrow if you find the first two helpful.

Hope these help.

DanASM said:

Microsoft Excel and youtube.

I just did this last night for all my drills/taps.

How to create simple IN and OUT Inventory System in Excel - YouTube

I still had the video up.

Click to expand...

Dan, thanks for the resource. I geeked out on inventory management models for a bit after the video. So much so that I ended up building a couple different models in Excel that are ready to go.

If you aren't keen on building Excel inventory management models, you should use the ones I made. They're free and available for download here:

Free, Turnkey Excel Models for Inventory Management

dtbrown said:

Dan, thanks for the resource. I geeked out on inventory management models for a bit after the video. So much so that I ended up building a couple different models in Excel that are ready to go.

If you aren't keen on building Excel inventory management models, you should use the ones I made. They're free and available for download here:

Free, Turnkey Excel Models for Inventory Management

Click to expand...

I am glad you got somewhere with this. I looked yours over a bit and it looks like it does way more than I need.

I love how Excel works. It can be a pain in the ass to make templates and write the formulas. Over time it save lots of time and make life a lot easier.

I just made one from a decimal equivalent chart. I put every drill size, with HSS, Cobalt, Carbide, Left Hand / Right Hand.

I find that it can be easier when quoting jobs. I can see right on the computer if I have the tooling in house already. Saves a few trips around the shop looking for things.