Manufacturing project management software for CNC machine shops that schedules every spindle
A machine shop runs dozens of small projects at once. Each job has its own drawing, its own sequence of milling, turning, deburring and finishing, and its own promised date, and all of them share a handful of CNC machines. ProductionPlanning.ai manages them as one finite capacity schedule, so every job has a real finish date and every machine a clear queue.
Free for 14 days on your own orders and machines. No card.
Machine shop, This week's schedule, finite capacity per work center
- On time
- Late
- Changeover
On time
0%
Bottleneck
0%
Shortages
0
Why generic project tools do not fit a machine shop
General project management software tracks tasks and people. A machine shop's constraint is machine hours: two jobs can both be on track as tasks and still need the same mill at the same time. That conflict is exactly what a task board does not show and a finite capacity schedule does.
- Many short operations per job, across several machines
- Setups that change with every part, fixture and material
- Second operations and outside processing, such as heat treatment or plating
- Rush jobs that push everything else
- A few machines that everything passes through
Built for mills, lathes and cells
- Work centers for each mill, lathe, grinder, deburr bench and inspection
- A routing per part, with setup and cycle time per operation
- Setup time counted wherever the part changes on a machine
- Outside processing as a work center with a fixed lead time
- Alternative machines for operations several machines can run
- Queue per machine for the operator, with the next job ready (Plant plan and above)
The worked example on the home page is a machine shop week: twelve orders, two mills, a lathe, deburr, paint and assembly, with the mill that decides which orders are late named.
Every job as a project, every machine as a constraint
- Each job with its operations on a timeline, from material to shipping
- Projected finish date for every job, next to the promised date
- Late jobs listed with the days they will miss by
- The week's bottleneck machine named, with its utilisation
- Rush jobs by customer priority, with the effect on other jobs shown
For quoting and one off work, see job shop scheduling software. For the sequence on each machine, see machine scheduling software. If the shop management system you are pricing is JobBOSS2, our JobBOSS alternative comparison sets its packages and per seat licence against a flat price per plant, and shops weighing a paperless ERP can read our ProShop ERP alternative comparison first. Shops already on RealTrac that only need a finite schedule next to it can read our RealTrac alternative page.
What machine shop software you need, and in what order
Machine shop software splits into three jobs, and shops usually buy them in the wrong order. Quoting and estimating wins the work. Machine shop ERP records what the job cost. Machine shop scheduling software decides which spindle runs it and when, which is the part that makes the promised date true.
| What you are buying | What it does for the shop | Where we fit |
|---|---|---|
| Machine shop quoting and estimating software | Prices the job before you win it | Not us, but we give you the delivery date to quote with |
| Machine shop ERP or management software | Records jobs, costs, purchasing and inventory | Not us, we run next to it |
| Machine shop scheduling software | Loads every mill, lathe and cell against its real shifts | This is the whole product |
| Shop floor data collection | Operators start and finish jobs at the machine | Included on the Plant plan |
A shop with a working quoting process and a system of record already has the first two. What it usually does not have is a plan that survives Wednesday. That is a 149 USD a month decision rather than an ERP project, and it does not replace anything you already paid for.
See your spindles' week before Monday
Load the machine shop in the demo, or create your account and enter your open jobs.
Your data stays yours. Export or delete it any time. No card to try the demo.