MRP/Production Planning Software Costs

Hi All!

I've got a team building building a software for production planning in a machine shop. We're planning to begin testing towards the end of January. The program will be targeting all shop, big and small, so all input is good input. What I need to sort out is pricing so comes my question!

If you have a software right now, E2/Job Boss/Epicore, how much do you pay per year? How many users? How many jobs per month do you run?

If you don't have a software right now, same questions, just how much would you be willing to pay for x users?

And just a general discussion of MRP costs may help others pick out a software as well! I've worked in shops that primarily use Epicore or E2. I know one of the shops bought E2 but pretty much stopped there after seeing how expensive the learning curve would be to fully implement.

Your input is greatly appreciated!

In my opinion, production scheduling is tough for many machine shops although it can somehow be managed on shop floor using pencil and paper or whiteboard or Excel. Development of software for such scheduling is also tough. Despite the claims of ERP vendors for job shops about the merit of their scheduling modules, most ERP users in job shop world avoid those modules and run their own Excel applications for scheduling. I do not deny that there are some job shops running scheduling modules of ERP systems with or without satisfaction. I suspect that ERP scheduling modules for job shops are weak and ineffective in general because ERP vendors were probably guided by MRP thinking in the development of those modules. There are some best-of-breed software tools for machine shop scheduling. They could not have survived in the market if ERP scheduling modules are truly satisfactory to many shops.

How can you convince a machine shop that you developed a scheduling software that is superior to the existing ERP scheduling modules and best-of-breed scheduling software for job shops? In my view, development of such software requires more than coding skills, shop floor knowledge and commonsense. The additional requirement is the knowledge and skill for developing right scheduling models and algorithms. I feel that a vast majority of software developers lack the required knowledge and skills in job shop scheduling and simply code their commonsense into scheduling modules. No wonder why none of the Microsoft Dynamics ERP packages has a sensible module for scheduling high-mix, low-volume production in job shops in spite of great coding skills of developers at Microsoft.

Jeez, another one?

I can tell you one thing. As a matter of company policy, we will NEVER again be swindled by ANY software that has maintenance.

ShopPLanner said:

How can you convince a machine shop that you developed a scheduling software that is superior to the existing ERP scheduling modules and best-of-breed scheduling software for job shops? In my view, development of such software requires more than coding skills, shop floor knowledge and commonsense. The additional requirement is the knowledge and skill for developing right scheduling models and algorithms. I feel that a vast majority of software developers lack the required knowledge and skills in job shop scheduling and simply code their commonsense into scheduling modules. No wonder why none of the Microsoft Dynamics ERP packages has a sensible module for scheduling high-mix, low-volume production in job shops in spite of great coding skills of developers at Microsoft.

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A quick snippet of my background! I grew up in the machine shop my dad built. I started formally as a shipping clerk, worked up the ladder to shop supervisor. I've been lead machinist/qc manager/floor lead at 3-4 other shops over the last 12 years. I'm a green belt in lean six sigma, been formally trained in ISO auditing and am going through theory of constraints methodology as it applies to machine shop scheduling specifically. That is my boots on the ground experience.

How does this help with software? The shop I have the most experience in is almost exclusively a prototype machine shop. Quantities of 10 is not common for us. Around 5 years ago, I taught myself how to program visual basic in Microsoft Excel. With that I built a scheduling program for our shop that we have been using for the past 5 years instead of the planning software in E2. I've had ISO auditors note that it's one of the best they've seen, it's has a show point when touring customers through the shop. For numbers improvement, from it's initial implementation, within 3 months our OTD went from ~60% to +80%, and we began having record months concurrently. With that, I've convinced an investor to support my program and now have a small team of developers to build it. It is nearing completion, aiming to be released late this winter/early spring. That brings us to my initial question.

I'm looking at how to price it out at the moment, hence I'm curious for general informatiom on what others pay and what their size is! I want to make sure my program works for everyone and that cost is not a reason to not get it as is the case for many of the top tier mrps, e2, jobboss, epicore.

Also, a discussion on cost may help others that are starting to look into it get an idea of pros and cons of various programs!



Short snippet - 12 years experience, built previous software with generally positive feedback, building it to be cheap enough for all shops.

Is the version you are developing built with Visual Basic?

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The new version is built with some newer languages, I believe there is some c# which is a similar language. I'm not entirely sure the technical details, I'm leaving that with the developers haha

JesseDC said:

How does this help with software? The shop I have the most experience in is almost exclusively a prototype machine shop.

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I just hope that one specific prototype machine shop can represent the entire machine shop world from planning and scheduling point of view.

JesseDC said:

I'm looking at how to price it out at the moment, hence I'm curious for general informatiom on what others pay and what their size is! I want to make sure my program works for everyone......

Also, a discussion on cost may help others that are starting to look into it get an idea of pros and cons of various programs!

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People make a trade-off among power, functionality, user friendliness and price of the software. It seems there are already some low-cost scheduling software like Scheduler123, http://www.scheduler123.com/ with some apparently impressive testimonials from different shops. For scheduling purpose, some shops use MS Project which costs less than $600.

ShopPLanner said:

I just hope that one specific prototype machine shop can represent the entire machine shop world from planning and scheduling point of view.
.

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It was built in one shop, but is used in some variation by 3 shops along with inventory and too management modules. At the moment I've also already have shops lined up for my beta testing in January.

My research at the moment which may be beneficial for discussion on this thread is pricing that shops may be paying