Printed user manuals

While I was helping out with the end-of-year clean-up, I opened several dusty boxes of old MISys manuals. The job I was assigned was to strip out the white paper for the recycling bin and toss the 5" plastic binders in the dumper. This got me thinking about all the people we'd sold printed manuals to and the requests I still get for a printed MISys manual.

We've sold quite a few printed manuals (a stack of paper about 4 inches thick weighing just over 14 pounds) over the years, but not nearly enough to cover the cost of printing, binding, and shipping. Many years ago, we decided to call an end to the production of printed documents and rely on a [hopefully] well-written User Guide built into the software. In my mind, the electronic User Guide was superior because it featured contextual links to the program (press F1 for Help), an extensive index, full-text keyword search capabilities, and extensive hypertext links (click here for more...). Plus, you could print out selected topics for exciting reading on the train or at home.

Before the warehouse clean-up, I hadn't been thinking much about printed manuals. Except that my wife, who is an avid reader, shuns my iPad while I, hardly a recreational reader, have discovered a whole new world in the iBooks library. This tells me that, despite all the advances in technology and preceived benefits of electronic documentation, there are people (some of them MISys software users) for whom a lapful of paper is really the best way to learn.

In the coming months, I'm going to be mulling over all the best ways to help our customers learn the ins and outs of the MISys manufacturing software. Unlike software that you can learn to use by just wandering around, MISys is big and complex -- and it deals with a subject that confounds many people who don't own any software.

Printed manuals, electronics documents, instructional videos. How do you think you learn best?

MISys reports record results

I am pleased to report that MISys, Inc. delivered record results in 2010 with more manufacturers implementing our software than ever before in our 25 year history. Even though the worldwide recession had a measurable cooling effect of everyone’s business, our conversations with customers like you reveal an increasingly positive outlook in the small- to mid-sized manufacturing market. All indications are that 2011 is going to be a banner year for us. I hope it is for you, too!

Visit www.misysinc.com/ and take the 6-step tour!

Time for end-of-year inventory counting...

For many companies, New Year's Day is not a day off. Instead, it is a day to do the physical inventory count while the phone isn't ringing. Though it isn't always "fun", there is often a shared sense of mission and purpose to get it done.

Here are a couple of articles on conducting inventory counts that I thought were helpful, if not just interesting.

- http://www.accountingtools.com/procedure-inventory-count
- http://support.quickbooks.intuit.com/support/pages/inproducthelp/Core/QB2K6/wholesale_n/mwd_n/mwd_year_end_inventory_count.html

You don't have to shut down the company to conduct your physical inventory when you are doing your physical inventory. Here are some helpful hints when using MISys Manufacturing to do your inventory count:

MISys Manufacturing uses a Net Change Physical Inventory.
This means that MISys Manufacturing will adjust the quantity of your Items based on the difference between the Counted Quantities and the Recorded Quantities for each entry in the Physical Inventory Batch. The difference of those two values is applied to the Current quantities when you Check (which you should always do before posting!) or Post the batch.

When you are ready to take your Inventory, you would Print the Physical Inventory Worksheet which captures your current Stock Levels as Recorded Quantity. Since we have these values you are free to continue processing in MISys Manufacturing as the Counts are being performed.

Once you have completed the actual counting of you inventory, you would then Feed the Worksheet into the Physical Inventory Batch and then enter the counted values. Once you've entered all of your Item counts in the Batch, you can then Check the Batch and MISys Manufacturing will use the method described above to calculate the resulting quantities. If the results are at odds with the actual quantities, you can adjust the Batch as needed. Once the quantities are correct, you would then proceed to Post the Batch.

If you have any questions regarding this process, feel free to contact us at MISys Manufacturing Technical Support.

Visit us online at http://www.misysinc.com/

Serial/Lot Tracking Could Save Your Manufacturing Business

CNN reported today that Ford is recalling thousands of trucks due to a faulty module that could potentially start a fire.

Ford discovered the fault on the assembly line and decided to investigate. It was traced to a single part called a body control module; a part manufactured by Lear Corp. As Lear investigated, they were able to find out that this specific part failed because "a new hire failed to clean a soldering machine over a 6 day period in October".

Wow! Now that's an impressive level of detail. This recall could have been much wider... maybe millions of vehicles. But instead, its limited to 6 days! How did they know? It's because they use software similar to MISys Manufacturing that provides visibility and detail into their manufacturing processes.

Because Lear was able to isolate and track down that specific part to a specific source location - which led to a specific place and time in the manufacturing process - they were able to quickly tie it back to the vehicles that received these parts and limit the damage and cost.

Mistakes happen. And when they do, make sure you have the right tools in place to fix it!

Visit http://www.misysinc.com and take the 6-Step tour.

New Chapter Now Available: How To Choose A Right-sized Manufacturing System - The Basics of Planning

It is easy to say “We should do better planning” but actually accomplishing this goal is often very difficult – virtually impossible without strict procedures coupled with a computerized system.
Effective planning is often illusive for manufacturing firms whether they are small or large, but for different reasons.

Small manufacturing firms usually lack the manpower required to “get organized” and implement sufficiently strict policies and procedures where planning is possible. Without strict procedures, small firms generally will revert to “seat-of-the-pants” operations where all efforts of focused on getting through to the end of the day... read more

As you continue to hunt for the right manufacturing solution, take a look at this free resource: "How To Choose a Right-sized Manufacturing System"

It's an unbiased, five chapter series written by David Brown, the CEO of MISys Manufacturing. After working with manufacturers for 25 years, Dave really knows his stuff... it's like getting a top-dollar consultant for free. Click, read, enjoy.

We had a fantastic showing for part 1 of the 4-part webinar series for Peachtree users.  "Peachtree Quantum Manufacturing Edition (QME) Overview".  The video has been archived here - http://www.misysinc.com/webinar/ 

Enjoy!