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The inventory control question again...An idea..

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Adam Whetham:
I fully agree with this also.

Right Now our company has two offices 70 miles apart. I don't deal with our large production stuff. But i deal with our smaller rentals we deal with.. IE the speaker on a stick rentals with a talking head. (You can get some good income from these) And sometimes Something gets forgotten from a rental. Maybe I might double book a small Mixer. Or over book my PGX Wireless Lapel units.

Right now we haven't even bought software like hiretrack, etc. We just use Outlook on shared callendars so We can see whats going on with each shop.... tentativly see if somethings going out. etc.

If its something basic that does the trick. I Would love to find something simple. like this.

Callendar based.

Creat Job.(auto enter who puts job in. editable later)
Contact info of Job
Drag and drop items under job. (Items in a list organized in groups)
click next
Enter Load in/Load out== Pickup/Drop-off
Load in - Who will be there
Load out - Who will be there
NOTES
Alarm/reminder settings.

Saves after every step.

My basic Idea.

I realy think their is a demand for something like this. I would Love to support it.

Mark Meagher:
I'm in.

I was looking for something like this a few weeks back, actually started a year or so ago looking to track maintenance.
Most of the stuff that's out there that has interested me is known as "asset management" or "asset tracking" software and can get pretty elaborate and pretty salty, pretty quick.

I agree with everything that's posted so far as I can see a use for most of it in our place. With anything there will be some features and fluff that doesn't apply to your situation but that's ok.

I am particularly interested in the life cycle history of certain pieces of gear, ie: when and where purchased, when repaired, by whom, how much did it cost etc...

If you turn your gear over with any frequency and are constantly buying or selling gear, it can be a nightmare keeping the accountant up to speed on which gear is still on-hand and which needs pulled from the depreciation schedule. Not to suggest any accounting be included in this project but it sure would be nice to run a report with serial numbers and other info on what gear was bought or sold this year etc..

To expand on something already posted...the ability to create assemblies for things that have to be packaged, for instance a mixer and it's power supplies have to go out together and all the other gear that falls in that type of situation. (referential integrity for you programmer types). Our company is small enough that sometimes gear overlaps from one rig to another. A side fill stack on one rig might be a standalone main stack on a smaller rig. So it would be nice to make sure that it wasn't booked to be used in 2 different rigs in 2 different places on the same day.

It also would be nice (or maybe just a fantasy), for those that have web sites for this to be browser based so it could be accessed from the road at any time. OK. Maybe not such a great idea.

I did a bit of development work over the years but I am certainly NOT the one to spearhead this project but will be more than happy to help anyone who is truly an expert.

Didn't mean to write a book here. Just a few thoughts.

Whomever is the man for the job here, please stand up so we can give you the atta-boy and take this thing by the horns and get it rollin'.

Darren Scaresbrook:
Hi Geri,
Have a look at this website. The program is "Production Assistant", the company is based down here in Aus. I haven't used it personally but I know someone who has it and they seem to be getting along fine with it. I think the pricing is reasonable, I even seem to recall a free version for businesses with just a few users (dont quote me on this!).
Cheers
     Darren

http://www.productionassistant.com.au

Stuart Hogg:
Mark Meagher wrote on Wed, 20 September 2006 05:50
It also would be nice (or maybe just a fantasy), for those that have web sites for this to be browser based so it could be accessed from the road at any time. OK. Maybe not such a great idea.


When using Filemaker, it is relatively easy to publish the database as HTML. Obviously you then need some kind of password protected way of viewing it, but the basic web-publishing functionality comes out of the box.

This isn't to say "you must do it in Filemaker" - far from it in fact, but I'd expect that similar "webkit" type things will be available for Java, SQL, etc.

The other thing I've seen is a product called SyncDek (google it). Using this product each used keeps a complete copy of the database on their machine, and they are syncronised with each other using an smtp link. This has lower network overheads than looking at web pages, with the bonus being that if you don't have online access you can see everything that is in the database up until the last update, plus you can add bookings and have them sync later.

Syncdek is fearsomely expensive (otherwise I'd be using it for our own databases) but again this might be an approach that could work for a home brew solution.

Geri O'Neil:
Hi, Darren. Thanx for the suggestion, I have the free version and I think it could be what I'm looking for. But it kinda falls in the "too much sugar for a dime" category. Still, I haven't written it off just yet. Mark keeps talking about a Version 3 supposedly coming out that will have, among other things, barcode capability. Hope it comes out soon.

Geri O

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