Locating production planning software that is right for your small business is not easy, as there are literally hundreds of established, known brands available in the market, all of which differ according to visibility and functionality.
Therefore, in order to understand the different types of planning software available, we must first understand what the key principles of the production planning process are.
These factors may include product range increases, new equipment for manufacturing being introduced, inventory stock changing, and more.
For manufacturing firms, it is essential that they can achieve the calculations and estimations in relation to these factors as accurately as possible. Production planning should provide the answers to questions such as:
In today’s world, many small manufacturing firms simply use their own intuition, together with outdated, somewhat obsolete techniques during their production planning and decision making process, wasting valuable time and not fully realising the company’s true potential.
Unfortunately however, for production planning applications, it’s very limited. One of the major drawbacks is speed. Every time a user adds more or different types of tables and files which are connected with one another, the program will become slower in terms of its performance.
The downside is that it can be costly – and customised software solutions present the risk of important team members leaving at any stage during the project, meaning that it could potentially be in jeopardy at any time.
The majority of MRP software vendors in today’s market utilise cloud-based software solutions for hosting their system which improves the speed, performance and reliability, not to mention accessibility.
Furthermore, production planning solutions these days are rather inexpensive. Small businesses can usually easily afford such solutions and do not need to go for expensive options like SAP and Epicor in order to get access to the production planning functionality they need.
Moreover, many specialist production planning vendors do not require you to sign long-term contracts in order to use their services, and small businesses can even gain access to free trial periods that enable them to evaluate the software.
An example of this is MRPeasy, a cloud-based ERP/MRP software provider for small-medium sized manufacturers. Developed from the ground up for businesses with 10 - 200 employees, there’s a free 30-day free trial with a starting price of under £40 for the basic starter package.
This is achieved through being able to deliver accurate lead-times during quoting, together with the ability to improve the use of equipment, and improve overall efficiency via real-time reporting functionality.
Moreover, firms can enjoy additional benefits such as the prevention of stock-outs, maintaining lower inventory levels (and being able to keep them at those levels), automated inventory transactions, the ability to view purchasing requirements, track lots, and much more.
MRPeasy www.mrpeasy.com