Ask Before You Buy Shop Software by Matt Owens Plant Manager, Arkco Machine Products, Inc., Arkadelphia, Ark. It can be tempting to make rapid buying decisions. However, yielding to that temptation could lead to a costly mistake. Especially if the decision you are about to make concerns a technology investment for your company. Shop control software is no exception. You are about to lay out hard currency for your software. But will it do what you really expect of it? You know how a machines should function and feel comfortable with purchasing them. But what about software? This is the time for you to slow down and ask some hard questions to gain that same level of familiarity with the software you are thinking about buying. You've heard from your peers how easy it is to get burned when you venture into the software market. Yet, when compared to those of machine tools, many software price tags are not huge. In fact, if you compare the returns on investment, that of software can often exceed that of a machine purchase. Still, you sometimes feel that vendors are promising the moon. Even companies and individuals who consider themselves to be technologically savvy can make expensive mistakes if they don't do their homework and ask the right questions. At Arkco, we felt fairly comfortable with our level of computer expertise the first time we started shopping for shop control software. Our shop had been computerized since the 1970s, when our owner started writing programs to help manage the company more efficiently. Not long ago, we realized we would be unable to keep the original, aging hardware running much longer. That meant we also would also require a new shop control software system. We upgraded our equipment, installing new computers with Windows 95 at every workstation and a state of the art network with a Windows NT server. Then we went out to purchase our new software. The experience our shop had buying the wrong software that time cost us close to $15,000, not including software-related downtime, or the frustration we experienced trying to work our way through the problems the system created. We learned how to buy software the hard way. If you are willing to learn from our mistakes, you can find the right program the first time out of the gate, saving both headaches and dollars. Here's what I've learned about buying shop control software. All software is not created equal, but software typically does what its developers claim. One of your first concerns should be 'how easy it the software to learn and to use.' Unless you want to get to know the phone operator at your software vendor's help line better than you know your family, check the system out before you buy it. Ask for references from the vendor's list of customers and call them. Find out what kinds of problems they have had with their systems. Also, talk to your peers, and visit trade shows. There are a number of seemingly obvious, overall qualities to look for – as well as results to expect – in every program feature. They are worth remembering as we discuss the various features: reduction of manual effort, flexibility, simplicity or ease of operation, elimination of redundancy, organization, and level of technical support. Compare apples to apples Before you start looking for a shop control software program, there are a few facts to remember. One item which must be kept constantly in mind is that the same words and phrases can mean different things to different people. Though you may think you know what the program modules do, make sure the software vendor's definition of the terms are the same as yours. Create an outline or checklist of the activities you perform while estimating, during order entry, to prepare a schedule, to ship an order, to prepare an invoice, and so forth. Not only will you want to compare apples to apples when making purchasing decisions; even more important is to ensure that the software does everything you expect it to do, in the manner you expect it to be done. Computer programmers come from different backgrounds. Some may have experience in one industrial area, but make software that crosses lines to another. Others may have no manufacturing background, but develop programs to serve the generic needs of industry. An important point is this: just because the terminology and processes in computerized accounting systems are pretty well standardized, don't expect the same in manufacturing software. Before you can judge that one aspect of a shop control program is better than the same aspect of a different program, it is important to make sure the two perform the same functions. Reducing the burden At a global level, the software must actually perform tasks that simplify your operations. To do this, it must take away some of the burden of data entry, as well as any manual calculations that may be involved. How many pencil and paper steps are eliminated? A word processor echoes what you've entered. Shop management software must do far more. In job estimating, for example, does the program do any work for you, or does it simply generate a quote after you enter a per part price? What about raw material? Does the system actually calculate the weight and amount of material for the job, without requiring you to look at external charts for weights per cubic inch, or other measurements? Such capability speeds up the whole process. The same goes for cycle time calculations – again an estimating process. Does the system give you times in seconds and minutes, or must you actually lay out the tooling, look up feeds and speeds, and manually calculate the cycle times for jobs. How many of those manual steps does the software eliminate? How flexible is the software Everyone talks about flexibility, but what are some of the things about which you might not hear? Each shop control system has a super-set of functions that it performs. Many customers, however, will not want to use every subset. Those standard and optional functions range from estimating to shipping, and perhaps to the accounting functions. What if you've already satisfactorily implemented one or more of these in stand-alone software packages? Will you be able to continue using your existing scheduling software, for example, and operate the new system without its scheduling module? Does the new system provide an interface with which you might quickly and easily import or export information in the proper formats to other software programs? Those capabilities address your ability to use the pieces of the system that are applicable to your operations. They also foretell your ability to both grow with the system or to independently learn segments of the system at your employees' level of comfort. Will you be forced to use Inventory if you want to use Purchasing? Will Shipping module information be mandatory to create an Invoice? If so, can you live with that level of inflexibility? A good example of information that you may want to export to another software package is 'time.' Will you want the time to be available for both that system's job costing routines and your payroll system? If so, there's another point to consider. Your Accounting Department will insist upon accurate data collection. Using bar codes and bar code readers for time collection eliminates data entry errors and redundant data entry. How flexible is the vendor The lack of flexibility in a software system is sometimes an appropriate reflection of its developers. Many operators work in the "this is what our system has, take it or leave it" style. This is one of the many reasons you will want to talk to the vendor's customers before you make a decision. When you do, ask whether the developer supports customers who require program customization. If so, get more references from customers who have asked for customization or special modules. Since the need for special routines is not uncommon, before you buy a shop control program, find out how much customization is available, how open the system's developers are to suggestions, and how much their programming efforts are going to cost if your company decides to take advantage of them. How easy is the system to operate Ease of operation also involves flexibility. How simple is it to move the transactions (invoices, etc.) out of the shop floor control system into a third party or an integrated accounting system? If your company already uses an accounting package, you want to preserve that, yet not find yourself redundantly reentering data already available in the new software. Flexibility, here, means that the data can be presented to the third party accounting system in a manner it can immediately accept. In that regard, it is good to be aware of the trend by some vendors toward interfacing their software with complementary systems. This is a significant factor affecting ease of operation. The more interfacing options a package offers that can bring information together from other commonly used packages (CAD, Tool Room, Estimating, Documentation), the simpler your job will be. These are positive attributes if you use other software tools and want to avoid data entry redundancy. Presentation of the information on the computer monitor's screen impacts ease of use. It should be organized and esthetically pleasing. A more important consideration is whether the software has an intuitive screen presentation. Examine every screen. Is the information simply thrown onto the screen in an unorganized (Illogical) manner? Will that retard the process, or more importantly, the learning process? To have the functions and the flow within the functions working progressively, means that the program will take you logically through the steps to be performed, requesting the information you need to have, when you need it. Such a presentation might also include using visual groupings of necessary information on the screen, using labeled boxes. Blanket purchase orders (POs) are becoming more important to your customer's purchasing departments. The blanket PO gives them the ability to have one PO and be able to specify the kind of releases they want, in order to buy and get the price breaks for larger quantities without carrying inventory locally. Being able to accept them is one thing. Can the software also give you the ability to track multiple releases at the sales order level, the shop order level, and at the purchase order level? Does the software help you get a better picture of where your resources are being spent? Today, an ever increasing amount of commercial software is using graphics to represent program functions. In manufacturing, some software vendors also are beginning to use icons – visual representations – of work centers, inventory or tool locations, and even vendors. The ability to represent your operations with icons brings the ability to quickly obtain the status of a work center. Selecting a specific workcenter icon might then immediately show what is loaded on this workcenter. Some programs offer similar functions for an inventory center, an outside service, or a vendor. Does your software work for you, or do you work for it? Ask your peers how much time they spend trying to get the software to execute the functions they use. If using the program is more complicated than it should be, it will decrease the benefit the program delivers. Today, through graphics, using even Windows-based programs can be much easier than it was just a few years ago. Programs with a higher percentage of their command functions based on Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs) will generally be much easier to use. Before you buy a system, talk to people who use it on a daily basis and find out what kinds of results they are having. Programs with a heavy GUI emphasis are generally easier to use. Find out how often users must refer to their operating manuals, and how much help those manuals provide. Also, ask how steep and how long the learning curve is for the program. Ask whether the manuals can eventually be set aside for all but the most difficult or infrequently performed operations, or if you should start cleaning off a spot on your desk for them. When discussing this aspect of the software with other users, it is important to inquire about their past computer experiences. An experienced computer user may find a program much easier to use than a novice. Try to find someone with similar experience and capability to the people in your shop who will use your software so you have an accurate measuring stick of the program's degree of user friendliness. Even among the programs which function the way they were intended, some work better and more easily than others. Windows-based programs have revolutionized the software industry, allowing even the most computer illiterate among us to function on a computer. However, while Windows has been around now for quite a few years, many of the shop control programs on the market today have been around longer. Properly converting DOS programs to the Windows environment is a massive undertaking. Don't be surprised to find software that is still DOS-based, but running in a Windows 'window' – that's not a true 'Windows' product. Rather it is based upon a quick solution, not the comprehensive solution. A final note on program ease of use involves customer service. How quickly can you provide customers with answers about their jobs? Look for screens in the system that let you quickly answer customer inquiries about their order status, finished goods inventory, shipments, or work in process (WIP). Having these available at the fingertip means saving money for both the shop and the customer by not requiring a call back and the usual phone tag. Internet and Intranet The Internet and Intranet are great and growing platforms for providing more and better customer service. Having the flexibility to provide customers a quicker pathway to shipment or WIP status, or for updating blanket release information can be a wonderful time saver. An ever increasing number of shop control software packages offer these capabilities through the shop's web site. While it is true that many shops don't yet have web sites, customer service via the Internet is an important trend that is beginning to change that situation, as shops try to differentiate themselves through service, rather than product. How good is the tech support It is impossible to escape overlooked programming bugs. In addition, there almost always are small problems with the installation of new computer systems. Your first questions to a vendor's references should be to identify the quantity and types of problems they have had with the system. Then ask about the level of satisfaction they have with the service they received as a result of those problems. Most end users of new software systems experience some kind of problem. The difference between a satisfied customer and a disgruntled one is often determined by the quality of service that customer receives while trying to solve those problems. Again, talk to your peers who have called the vendor's tech support line. Find out if the company has a users' group for the program you are considering. If it does, ask for the name and phone number of the group's president's. Ask him for user names and ask those users how hard it is to reach a technician, how long you can expect to spend holding a line instead of talking to a person, and how helpful the technicians are when they are contacted. Dial the number yourself. If you don't reach the help desk, is there a voice mail system? If there is, leave a message. What is the company's track record on returning calls from its customers? If they don't call back when they're trying to close a sale, there's a pretty good chance they won't call back once the check has cleared either. Many software users find the handling of follow up calls by their vendors frustrating. Before you buy, find out how the companies whose products you are considering handle follow up. On follow up calls, have your references been able to speak with technicians who are familiar with their situation, or must the entire scenario be explained again? How versatile are the technicians? Do they know the entire program, or just parts of it? The answers to these questions should give you a good idea if the company offers the type of support for its products that you will be satisfied by. And finally ... No matter how technical our shops become, or how little we interact with vendors, the people behind the software will eventually play a huge role in the level of satisfaction you derive from a product. This is a hard-to-measure intangible that must be considered when looking for software. Talk to the people who own the system and find out how satisfied they are with the training sessions they attended and the support they received. Try to determine before purchasing a system whether the vendor is a 'quick buck' artist who disappears when your check clears, or if they are committed to the kind of long term customer relationship your shop will need to use its new systems to its greatest benefit. In addition to all of the references you have gathered, the intangibles must be considered, too. Working relationships with your shop's software vendors must be good to ensure maximum production. Do you think you will be able to work with your vendor's reps and technical support staff? You'll have to trust your instincts at some point, and chances are, if you have a bad feeling about somebody with whom you are about to sign a contract and write a check, there is a reason. To protect yourself and your business, find out what is behind that feeling before you write the check. With these important points in mind, you should be on track to find the right shop control software for your company. Just remember to do your homework and ask the hard questions that will help ensure your ability to find the right software and the right vendor for your company. Matt Owens is the plant manager of Arkco Machine Products, Inc., Arkadelphia, Ark., a small make to order job shop. His firm now uses Henning Industrial Software's Visual EstiTrack software to assist in the management of the shop's operations. |
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