Bottleneck Report
Estimates
Job Costing
Throughput Widget
What is an ERP & Why your Shop Needs One
An ERP is software that unifies every part of your business so you can track, manage, and optimize front office and shop workflows, all in one place. It should be the foundation of every thriving, growing woodworking shop.
Instead of clicking through multiple apps, spreadsheets, or flipping through pieces of paper, an ERP centralizes important business data in one place. Enterprise resource planning keeps you organized, jobs on schedule, customers happy, and manages a predictable revenue stream you can scale when ready.
With an ERP, you get:
- Professional, accurate proposals.
- Complete visibility into your revenue and profitability.
- Inventory management.
- Real-time tracking to stop over-ordering and eliminate costly material issues.
- Efficient production scheduling.
- Optimized workflows.
- Efficient task assignments.
Insight into production to find and fix bottlenecks before they disrupt workflows. - Work order and change order management so your team always knows what to do and when.
- Timely invoices with automated tracking and reminders.
- Bill of materials updates.
- Sales tracking and customer management tools.
- Integrations with existing CAD and design software.
- Increased collaboration.
- Happier employees, satisfied customers, and fewer headaches for you!
Ultimately, an ERP ensures you have everything you need as your business grows. And that’s the key: to grow without harming your existing business while attracting new customers.
Luckily for you, with the right support, scaling your shop doesn’t have to mean more headaches and hassles. With an ERP, you can expand your business while creating an efficient and stress-free work environment for everyone, including yourself.
Think of an ERP as a workbench in your woodshop. It’s a place to organize and keep track of all your essential administrative and production tools and resources.
Why Your Shop Needs an ERP
Your woodworking company isn’t any standard manufacturing business. You’re not stamping out thousands of identical parts on an assembly line. You create precision-built wood projects that balance customization and quality woodworking.
While some of your jobs may be similar, each has unique specs, materials, and challenges.
This makes woodworking production far more complex than simply pressing a button and watching a machine do the same work over and over again.
Your shop success depends on inventory control, optimized scheduling, seamless communication, and delivering exceptional products.
Lucky for you, your teams can adapt on the fly, quickly shifting whenever changes pop up.
But generic ERPs can’t.
As a woodworker, you need an ERP designed by woodworkers who know the ins and outs of a woodworking business. An enterprise resource tool for woodworking has the flexibility to handle everything you need to operate and manage your shop, including custom one-off projects and high-volume productions.
Unlike managing your business with spreadsheets or word processing documents, an ERP means you don’t waste time inventing workarounds. You get less frustration and a system that actually makes your job easier.
Here are some of the other reasons you need an ERP for your shop. With an ERP you can:
- Track inventory in real time.
- Use integrations with CAD and other design tools to optimize processes, maximize material use, and reduce waste.
- Customize workflows that include labor availability, lead times, and other job dependencies to keep projects on time without overloading your team and stressing yourself out.
- Benefit from real-time job tracking so you don’t have to manually re-enter data or deal with disjointed software and processes.
- Get insight into what’s happening on the shop floor, from machine use and production delays to employee productivity and schedule management.
- Accurately forecast job costing and create proposals based on actual material costs, labor, machine time, and other business overhead.
- Keep accurate inventory that aligns with completed and in-progress work orders.
- Track stock levels, vendor orders, and work order trends.
Ultimately, your business is always evolving, so it’s time to put away outdated spreadsheets that can’t grow with you. It’s time to choose the right ERP solution for your business.
Still dubious on what it can do for your shop? Check out this case study on Coastal Millworks to see how they utilized INNERGY’s ERP to grow their shop and profitability.