Most shops feel the pain of disorganization in missed deliveries and unhappy customers. What is much harder to recognize is the impact it has on the utilization of equipment and people—and ultimately understanding which work is truly profitable and which is not. Plus, disorganization can stymy growth.

Front-office disorganization and poor shop floor communications don’t just reduce a job shop’s efficiency; they are a barrier to growth. Having the right kind of enterprise resource planning (ERP) system can be the key to improving profitability and scaling for future growth.

Learn how shop information automation can change the game, including ERPs, manufacturing execution systems (MES) and quality management systems (QMS).

With the right kind of information automation, you can harness the daily confusion that is the norm in many shops. These systems are typically called ERPs, but there are major differences in their ability to serve a job shop. These can combine estimating, scheduling, shop floor communications and even quality control into a single integrated system. It will allow you to quote jobs quickly, with confidence and with clear visibility into the real-time status of the job floor to maximize efficiency while maintaining a high on-time delivery rate. Plus, it will provide instant access to information all employees need to do their jobs—from estimators to purchasing and from shop floor personnel to shipping—without the need for routers or other manual communication and data collection methods, thus allowing you to scale your job shop with fewer people.