Terminology
Every category sells itself in initials. Here is what each one means, and what Gauge actually does about it.
Enterprise resource planning
The whole business in one system: orders, money, stock, people. The label most software in this category claims, usually meaning it also wants to run your payroll and your general ledger.
In Gauge
Gauge is not trying to be your accounting system. It runs the part of the business that touches the product, and hands invoicing off to the books you already keep.
Material requirements planning
Working backwards from what you have promised to what you need to buy and make, and when. It takes demand, subtracts what is on hand and already committed, and tells you the gap.
In Gauge
Demand comes from sales orders and forecasts. Gauge nets it against stock and reservations, shows the date each shortage bites, and suggests the purchase orders to cover it against the vendor and lead time on file.
Manufacturing execution system
The layer that runs the work on the floor rather than planning it: which operation is next, who is on it, how long it took, what scrapped.
In Gauge
That is the Shop Floor add-on. One queue and one job screen, with a timer, units recorded against the operation, and an issue you can report without leaving the bench.
Product lifecycle management
Keeping the definition of the product straight over time: part numbers, revisions, what is in what, and which change moved it.
In Gauge
Items, bills of materials and engineering changes are core modules on every plan. Where-used and item history come with them.
Bill of materials
The list of what a thing is made of. Multi-level means the list contains other lists, so an assembly is made of sub-assemblies made of parts.
In Gauge
A tree you build, cost and release. A parent costs the sum of its children, so changing a child re-costs everything above it, and each line is marked make or buy.
Engineering change order
The record of a deliberate change to a released product: what changed, why, who approved it, and which parts it touched.
In Gauge
Draft, request, review, approve, implement. Affected items are linked, files attach to the change, and the activity trail stays with it.
The ordered list of operations that turn material into the part, and which work center does each one.
In Gauge
Operations with setup and run time entered as time, attachments, inspection checkpoints, and the items each operation consumes.
A place or a resource that work is scheduled against: a machine, a cell, a bench.
In Gauge
You define your own in settings, along with equipment, operations and locations, so the schedule uses your names and not ours.
Non-conformance report
The record of a part that did not meet the spec, and what was decided about it.
In Gauge
Part of the Quality add-on, alongside inspections, corrective actions and scrap reporting, and the report carries the work order, operation and work center the part came from.
Corrective and preventive action
The follow-up after something went wrong: fix this one, then change the process so it stops happening.
In Gauge
Also in the Quality add-on, so the action links back to the non-conformance reports that triggered it.
Stock that is physically present but already promised to a job, so it is not really available.
In Gauge
Committed quantity is held against the job. Available is on hand minus reserved, which is why it is a number you can act on.
The paperwork that moves with a job through the shop, carrying the drawing revision and the operations to be done.
In Gauge
The job screen is the traveler. It records the part revision the job was raised against, and says so when the part has been revised since, so nobody builds to a drawing that moved.
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