Get Set…
New (to us) Equipment
We are making progress on the shop build-out and on acquiring additional machinery and tooling. We had gool luck at two auctions in the Midwest. At an auction in the Minneapolis area we purchased a 17x40 manual lathe with a nice 2-axis DRO, several mill vises, and a couple dozen CAT 40 toolholders. An nearby auction in the Des Moines area brought us a refrigerated air dryer.
Facilities
We have had a few contractors out to quote the facility build-out. Nothing too fancy here, but we will have enough space for the CNC Mill as well as an eventual CNC lathe to add on top of our 2 manual lathes and Bridgeport knee mill.
Software and Systems
We have also signed up for our chosen Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software - JobBoss2. Many would say an ERP for a new machine shop is not a good use of money. Here is my thinking:
The successful job shops that I have seen, visited and/or read about all have tight process control, from logical and consistent quotes, to good inventory control, to excellent in-process control and work scheduling, to quality and billing.
A good ERP also has the ability to help build a corporate knowledge base of job set ups, and ensures everyone in the company is working off the same info.
Consistent processes build a repeatable experience for our customers, and will play a huge part is cost containment.
A good ERP will ease the process of certification attainment.
For those that say ERP’s are only for big shop, I say that I believe building the processes from day-one will speed our business development by including big company process from the beginning. I will never had to back-fill better ways after I’ve been off in the weeds for months or years.
We are also going to be purchasing our accounting software in the next week.