Shop-floor software that shows what each job really cost you
Digital job cards, material issue, stage tracking, downtime logs and dispatch for machine shops, fabrication units and job-work suppliers, with costing built on real data.
Manufacturing software for small and mid-sized Indian factories follows each order from bill of materials and job card through production stages, material issue, machine time and dispatch, then shows what the job actually cost. It suits machine shops, fabrication units and job-work suppliers still running production on paper job cards alongside Tally.
Where the day goes wrong
- 01
Quoting blind
Prices are quoted from experience, and nobody knows until much later whether a job made money after rework, scrap and overtime.
- 02
Where is that order
A customer asks about delivery and the answer means walking the floor, because job cards exist only on paper at each machine.
- 03
Material that disappears
Raw material issued to the floor is never reconciled against good parts, rejections and scrap, so wastage stays invisible.
- 04
Idle machines nobody logs
Breakdowns, tool changes, power cuts and waits for material stop machines for hours that never appear in any report.
- 05
Job-work challans in a file
Principal-supplied material and return challans are tracked on paper, and the balance held for each customer is a guess.
What we build for you
- 01
BOM and routing
Multi-level bills of materials with versions, and the sequence of operations, machines and standard times for each part.
- 02
Digital job cards
A job card per order or batch with a QR code, updated at each station by operators on a shared tablet.
- 03
Stage tracking
Live work-in-progress by stage, including outside processes such as heat treatment or plating, with expected completion dates.
- 04
Raw material stock
Purchase, receipt, issue to job cards, returns and scrap, with heat or lot numbers where customers need traceability.
- 05
Downtime log
Stoppages recorded by machine, reason and duration, with a weekly view of which machines lose the most hours and why.
- 06
Dispatch and challans
Delivery challans, invoices and e-way bill details against customer schedules, plus job-work challans for principal material.
- 07
Job costing
Actual material, machine hours, labour, outside processing and rejection cost per job, set against the quoted price.
Life on a small factory floor
Take a machine shop in Coimbatore making pump and motor parts, or a Hosur unit turning components for an automotive supplier. Orders arrive as purchase orders or monthly schedules. Raw material, sometimes yours and sometimes supplied by the customer for job work, is issued to the floor. A part passes through cutting, turning, milling, an outside heat treatment, grinding and inspection before it is packed. The supervisor knows where most jobs are, the owner knows where the urgent ones are, and Tally knows only what was bought and invoiced. Everything in between lives on paper job cards and in people's heads.
The cost you cannot see
The quiet loss in manufacturing is not knowing your own cost. When a job needs rework, waits two days for material or runs on a machine that breaks down twice, the extra hours are absorbed, and the next quote is built on the same old assumptions. Material is the second leak: steel bars and castings are issued without being reconciled against good parts, rejections and scrap, so a few kilos missing per job never surface. Downtime is the third. Without a log, nobody sees that one machine loses hours every week to tool changes or waiting for material, and that a small fix would free capacity you were about to buy another machine for.
From routing to dispatch
We start from your routing, meaning the operations, machines and standard times for each part, and the bill of materials behind it. Each order becomes a digital job card with a QR code that operators or supervisors update at each station on a shared tablet: good quantity, rejections and time. Material is issued against the job card, so every kilo is tied to an order. Stoppages are logged by machine and reason in two taps. Dispatch produces challans and invoices against the customer schedule, and for job-work units, principal-supplied material is tracked challan by challan, giving your customer the return trail they need for their GST job-work filings. Together this is a custom ERP sized to your floor, not a general package you have to bend.
Floor screens are kept large, simple and bilingual where needed, and they keep working through short Wi-Fi drops. If you later want machine signals captured automatically, our IoT-connected app work can add that once the manual log has shown which machines matter.
What a production system costs
Job cards, material issue and dispatch for one unit typically start around ₹85,000. A complete production system with BOM versions, costing, downtime analysis and purchase generally costs ₹1,50,000 to ₹5,00,000, with the number of machines, stages and customers needing special documentation deciding where in that range you land. Timelines run ten to sixteen weeks, because we roll out one section of the floor at a time rather than switching everything on one Monday morning.
Why job cards come before costing
Costing is the goal, but it needs reliable time and material data for each job, and that data only exists once job cards are digital. After two or three months of clean records, costing reports become numbers you can quote from rather than estimates in a nicer format. Phasing the work like this is our answer to the scope problems described in why most ERP projects fail.
When a standard ERP or Tally is enough
A unit with a few machines, repeat orders and stable prices may only need Tally and a simple production register. A larger factory whose processes match a standard ERP might be better served by one, and we compare that path honestly in custom ERP versus Odoo. Building custom with VS Tech Builders makes sense when your routing, job-work arrangements or customer documentation will not fit a standard package. Owners in the Coimbatore belt may also find our Coimbatore business software guide useful.
Frequently asked questions
Our operators are not used to computers. Will this work on the floor?
It is designed for that. Operators do not use the full system; they scan the job card QR code on a shared tablet and tap large buttons for start, stop, good quantity and rejection, with labels in Tamil or another language where that helps. Supervisors handle anything more detailed. Because each tap replaces a line they would otherwise write on a paper card, it adds no extra work to the shift.
Can it handle material our customer supplies for job work?
Yes. Principal-supplied material is received against the customer's challan and held as their stock, separate from yours. Every issue, finished part, rejection and scrap quantity is recorded against it, and return challans are generated when parts go back. At any point you can show a customer exactly how much of their material is with you and in what form, which also supports the job-work returns they file under GST.
Does this replace Tally?
Usually not, and it does not need to. Tally stays as your accounting system, while the production software handles what Tally was never built for: job cards, stages, machine time, material reconciliation and costing. Invoices and purchase entries can be exported to Tally so your accountant keeps working the same way. Moving invoicing into the new system later is possible, but it is a separate decision.
How accurate will job costing be?
As accurate as the data behind it. Material cost comes from actual issues and rates against each job, machine cost from logged hours at a machine-hour rate you agree with your accountant, and outside processing from supplier bills. The first months will expose jobs where times were not recorded properly. Once recording becomes routine, the gap between quoted and actual cost becomes something you can price on.
Further reading
Software built for manufacturing units.
Describe your business and the problem in a few lines. We reply within one business day with an honest recommendation, a scope and a fixed price.