PartScheduler is job scheduling and job tracking for small machine shops that run the schedule on whiteboards, spreadsheets and memory. It is a web app, used in a browser in the office and on the floor. We designed it around three numbers.
- 3questions we built the main screens to answer.
- 5 secis the target for getting an answer.
- 30 secis the target for entering a new job.
The problem
Missed delivery dates. A late job is the fastest way for a shop to lose a customer, and the shop usually finds out a job is late when the customer calls to ask where it is.
The schedule sits on a whiteboard and in a spreadsheet, with the rest in somebody’s head, and nothing puts the pieces together in time.
What it does
Each main screen answers one of three questions:
- What is due this week?
- What is late, or about to be late?
- Where is that job right now?
Behind those answers is what PartScheduler covers today, starting with the schedule:
- Every job followed from purchase order to shipment.
- A whiteboard-style board that reads like the one on your wall.
- An operations board for the floor, with each machine’s queue.
- On-time delivery reporting.
And the detail on each job:
- Part files, with thumbnails and a 3D viewer in the browser for STEP and IGES models.
- A preview of the print (the PDF drawing), a click away on the job and the part.
- Part recipes, so every job goes to the floor with its operations in order.
- Piece counts for each operation.
- Material for each job, with its certs: on hand, or on order with the date you expect it.
What we left out on purpose
PartScheduler is not an ERP. It does no accounting, no quoting, no inventory and no payroll; those belong to software built for them. It keeps the schedule.
Data entry is the enemy. Every field is one more thing somebody has to stop and type, so PartScheduler asks for as little as it can. That is where the 30-second target for a new job comes from.
Built on a working shop floor
PartScheduler runs in production every day at a machine shop in Michigan. It is not a mock-up: the shop schedules real work on it.
We do not name that shop or show its work. We invented the customers, jobs and part numbers shown on this site, and none of them comes from a real shop.
Where we are
PartScheduler is not taking on more shops yet. Join the waiting list and we will email you when it does.
Checking us out
If you are deciding whether to trust us with your schedule, these pages say what we do and what we do not.
- Security: what protects a shop’s data, and what is not in place.
- Privacy: what we collect, where it goes, and who can see it.
- Terms: the agreement between a shop and us, and the rules for this website.
Anything they do not answer, ask us.
PFM Design LLC, a Michigan limited liability company, doing business as PartScheduler.