Karen Raush has had many roles at Collins Machine & Manufacturing in Louisville, Colorado. Her current title is quality manager, but she has been a prototype machinist, production supervisor and cost analyzer in her 12 years in the industry. She probably knows as much about the workings of this shop as anybody there, so she is in an especially good position to understand the importance of a computerized shop control system to the entire company. Versatility and adaptability are two of the chief characteristics she values in the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software that drives a shop control system. "Our work ranges from prototype to production. Like many shops out there, we have a lot of changing demands and needs over the years," she says. The software that has been meeting this requirement for the past 6 years is the E2 Shop System from ShopTech (Glastonbury, Connecticut). "We have been able to implement E2 and adapt its use as our company evolves," Ms. Raush says. "Prior to the introduction of this software at Collins Machine, we had communication errors because we used different databases and software- none of which were linked together or interacted with one another- for different departments." Those errors have been eliminated because the modules in the current software interact and cover the needs for all departments, she says.

Collins Machine uses modules of the same shop control software in all areas of its facility. In the inspection department, for example, A. J. Gurule can enter quality control data and query the system for reports summarizing data entered by other departments. Access to reports can be managed to protect sensitive information.

Collins has been in operation since 1973. It has about 45 employees. Although the company is a pure job shop that is willing to quote on a wide variety of challenging workpiece types and lot sizes, its primary focus in the last few years has been mostly aerospace and advanced defense-related prototype work. The shop is also involved in short-run production jobs. Its machin- ing resources include a number of Fadal, Daewoo and Hurco VMCs, a Mazak Palletech system and lathes from EZPath and Okuma. Ms. Raush reports that the company has been busy throughout 2008 and expects to see healthy business in 2009 despite the economic downturn. In fact, the company recently moved to a new facility with three times the space of the previous site. Along with the move, the company plans to add 30 percent more machining capacity-all the more reason that an effective shop control system must be in place and able to grow with the company, Ms. Raush says.