FAQ

Total ETO is the only ERP and MRP designed exclusively for Engineer To Order manufacturers.

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Is Total ETO software suitable for custom manufacturers?

Total ETO was created by engineers specifically for the custom design manufacturer. If your company manufactures products usually with a new design or a customized version of something you’ve done before, our Engineer To Order enterprise and material resource planning software is for you.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Easy to use as Total ETO’s workflow mimics the custom design process, providing a better ‘fit’.
  • There are many features within the application that were specifically designed for the Engineer To Order manufacturer.

What technologies does Total ETO use?

Total ETO uses open database technology and supports the latest Windows Operating Systems. Our Engineer To Order (ETO) material resource planning software uses a combination of Microsoft Office, Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft .NET and SAP Crystal Reports. All these technologies are industry proven, robust and heavily supported.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Assurance that the platform and database used is industry proven and will be supported for many years.
  • More longevity in your investment as current MS technologies are more likely to be supported on future versions.
  • Better value for your investment as new features from Microsoft will be added in your annual upgrades.

How does data flow throughout Total ETO?

Total ETO has a logical graphical user interface that mimics the business flow of a typical Engineer To Order organization. Commonly accessed areas like sales, engineering and manufacturing are easily accessible from a main menu, with quick access to all reports, and separate administrative functions to fine tune your setup.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Staff is more effective when the work flow is logical, easy to follow and mimics current procedures.
  • Better user experience with natural flow of screens and data.
  • Drastically reduce user training time with an intuitive interface that is easy to learn.

How is my data shown within Total ETO’s screens?

Total ETO offers two distinctive styles of showing data within the system; ‘Forms’, and ‘Grids’. The Forms are structured in a methodical, intuitive way, allowing you to see relevant data quickly and easily. Grids offer additional features including dynamic sorting, filtering, grouping, re-arranging, hiding of columns and resizing.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Improve your staff experience with adjustable grids that allow great flexibility.
  • Ability to resize allows full utilization of screen real-estate.
  • Hiding and rearranging columns allows staff to maximize their screen in a manner that makes sense to them.

How does Total ETO track my customer’s “Jobs”?

Total ETO provides a top-level Project and Job structure, allowing typical orders (Projects) containing deliverables and services (Jobs) to be properly arranged, grouped and tracked. Our Engineer To Order software also allows jobs to be arranged hierarchically for easier tracking of job costs, providing costing reports at all levels within the hierarchy.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Management can be more efficient with better access to costs and reporting.
  • Better control over complex machinery as it can be divided up into smaller easier to manage sections via Projects, Job hierarchies and even at the Assembly level.
  • Greater flexibility in all areas including but not limited to estimating, design, manufacturing, procurement, and costing.

How does Total ETO manage my Bill of Materials?

Total ETO provides a separate engineering screen to manage entire Projects and individual Jobs. A Bill of Materials (BOM) can be built in a hierarchy, rather than a flat BOM, and is displayed in a flexible graphical user interface. By displaying the BOM visually, designers have greater flexibility to break down assemblies and more easily manage changes to an assembly quantity or parts within the assembly.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Total ETO was built by engineers for engineers and understands your need for a structured BOM.
  • Fewer setbacks as engineers can logically break up complex machinery into a series of nested sub-assemblies.
  • Designers and engineers are more efficient as a structured BOM provides them with a quick and organized means of finding materials and managing change requirements.

Can I order long lead items and partial assemblies during the design phase with Total ETO?

Total ETO allows engineers to release their BOM to Procurement throughout the design process. Initially ordering long lead items, and then eventually determining the overall BOM requirements, engineering can release individual items, entire assemblies or completed BOMs to procurement once those items have been approved for purchase.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Engineering maintains total control of their BOM.
  • Purchasing can start sourcing supplies ahead of time instead of waiting till the whole project design is complete.
  • Designers have unparalleled control on the release of BOM items and assemblies to purchasing with Total ETO’s unique “hold and release” system.
  • Color coded visual “tagging” gives the designers the ability to pre-release data with confidence and Purchasing can then issue a PO.

Once I’ve released parts from my BOM, can I still make changes or is the BOM now static?

Engineer To Order companies know their BOM needs to be fluid. In Total ETO, your BOM is never locked down. Total ETO allows engineers to change and release their BOM as needed, even items they’ve previously released. This includes changes to previously released parts, assemblies and even the entire BOM. Total ETO will communicate any material changes to procurement for you.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Total ETO suits your business processes instead of you trying to adjust your business to suit your ERP.
  • Engineering maintains total control of their BOM, even if items have been procured.
  • Engineers can release assemblies or individual items more quickly since Total ETO will handle over or under procured items.
  • Procurement is immediately notified of items that need their attention, giving them time to resolve issues quickly, saving you money on unnecessary materials or extra shipments.

Does Total ETO integrate with my CAD system?

Yes, of course we do! Since we’re partners with Dassault and Autodesk, Total ETO provides integrated 3D CAD linking within SolidWorks and Inventor, embedding our controls in their CAD systems, allowing designers to easily push BOM information to Total ETO.

 

For other CAD systems, our BOM Import tool can quickly import a BOM file exported from applications such as SolidWorks Electrical, E-Plan, and Solid Edge, among many others, eliminating double entry, and possible data entry mistakes.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Designers can view and edit the BOM in ONE central location, giving complete control on the BOM’s development.
  • Staff gains flexibility, power and versatility in creating, modifying and controlling the flow of information to and from Purchasing.
  • By integrating your BOM with your 3D CAD, we eliminate duplicate data entry and speed up the engineering process.

Does Total ETO integrate with QuickBooks and other accounting systems?

Total ETO offers seamless integration with QuickBooks, providing a tight link between the two systems. Your accounting data is automatically exported into QuickBooks to pay bills, collect receivables and produce financial reports.

 

Total ETO also offers integration to many other accounting packages including Sage 300 and 50, as well as linking to outside payroll service providers such as ADP, and time and attendance systems like Mitrefinch, and others.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Use the best accounting systems available.
  • Save time by not having to learn a new accounting system.
  • Fewer mistakes as your accounting staff continues to use a familiar program.

How is procurement handled within Total ETO?

Total ETO provides a separate Procurement Screen which lists all the parts required by engineering BOMs, shop requisitions, and parts and service orders. This allows your purchasing staff to see the entire demand for any given part, as well as giving them the tools to group and arrange the parts in any order they need. There are many ‘automation tools’ in the application to assist the purchasing agents with creating Request for Quotes (RFQs), Purchase Orders (POs), Inventory Pulls, and other everyday tasks, minimizing their efforts, and maximizing their results.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Engineers are free to design and not be burdened by procurement.
  • Purchasing has better control over issuing RFQs, POs and reserving inventory.
  • Increased efficiencies to maximize your business and profit without having to add purchasing staff.

Can I buy material directly to a job or do I have to buy everything to inventory first?

Total ETO allows your buyers to buy material directly to a Job as any true Engineer To Order ERP system should allow. You can also use any available inventory first if you choose to.

 

Benefits to you:

  • No extra steps or changing of your business processes to suit the system.
  • Purchasing has better control over required materials.

Does Total ETO provide real-time job costing?

Project managers need to be able to see real time job costing, and labor hours to effectively manage their Jobs, and to address any potential issues. Total ETO provides practical real-time job costing on many screens and reports, all showing the up-to-the-minute committed costs and labor totals for any Project or Job.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Management will always have up to date real-time costs to compare vs estimate.
  • This knowledge ensures that Management can react quickly if a project cost goes off course.
  • No one is surprised by unknown increases in project costs.

What expediting, and purchase order tracking features are available?

Total ETO provides a separate expediting screen which allows procurement to keep track of all items that have been ordered, but not yet received. In addition to tracking POs that haven’t been received, Total ETO also allows users to track supplier performance, identify delays before they become serious, and ensure that all required items are appropriately received by their promised delivery date.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Purchasing can efficiently place and track orders ensuring materials are received on time.
  • Staff has the ability to identify potential delivery problems with a central screen displaying all information on open purchase orders.
  • Ability to easily track materials allows purchasing to expedite open orders.

Can I link to other files on our network to items within Total ETO?

We understand that there are many internal, and external documents that can be attributed to just one Project, and they can be stored in different network locations. Total ETO allows users to create links to any document related to a Project, Job, and even a Part.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Management can return to any project or job in the past to evaluate quotes versus costs.
  • Quick access to this information is invaluable for Sales when creating estimates for similar jobs in the future.

What reports are available within the application?

Total ETO provides users with more than 200+ reports, all accessible from the ‘Report Center’, or from within the various modules themselves. Additionally, custom reports can be developed using Crystal Reports, and can be integrated right within Total ETO itself.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Management has rapid access to all reports for timely information on projects.
  • Staff can quickly find and run necessary reports without having to learn how to navigate the system.
  • Daily report access ensures that you are on top of any issues within a project.

How easy is it to find historical data within Total ETO?

Total ETO provides many powerful search wizards to find all types of historical data. From Sales Estimates created years ago, to part purchase history, all historic data is easily searched, accessed, and utilized when needed.

 

Benefits to you:

  • The ability to access material and labor costs is essential to Estimating when quoting new jobs.
  • When engineering can access previously designed BOMs, they reduce their efforts for new jobs.
  • Manufacturing can use past job commentaries to highlight production opportunities.
  • Management can use past history to reduce the risk in setting selling prices and target margins.

Can I track Non-Conformances in Total ETO?

Total ETO’s Non-Conformance (NC) system allows users to raise NCs from several different areas within the system and allows users to track various causes of the issue such as defective parts, drawing or design errors, and manufacturing errors. Non-conformances are attached to Jobs and can have both labor and material costs associated to them. Coupled with powerful searches and powerful reporting, our Engineer To Order software solution provides the ability to identify the causes of non-conformances and allows users to prevent them from occurring on similar future projects.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Engineer To Order manufacturers are constantly faced with non-conformances and need a simple system to deal with the complexity of this process.
  • Knowing how to avoid certain errors in the future will affect your company’s bottom line and improve product quality.

Is there a method to notify users of certain events that occurred within Total ETO?

Total ETO provides a self-subscribing email notification system. This allows users to subscribe themselves to a host of notifications of important changes, such as a project creation, or a part being received. Total ETO’s notification system can even send emails to non-licensed users, ensuring relevant information is passed on as quickly as possible.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Better project control with proactive management notifications.
  • Non Total ETO users can receive important notifications without actively having to log onto the system.
  • Receive critical notifications remotely via electronic devices.

How are change orders handled within Total ETO?

There are times when your customer will request changes to an order after work has started on it (and occasionally after the design has been issued to purchasing and manufacturing) which affects design time and purchasing efforts. Other times, manufacturing often identifies areas where the design needs to be changed, requiring engineering to modify drawings and the BOM, while purchasing is left to change purchase orders.

 

These common issues are easily resolved with Total ETO’s Change Order features. Change Orders assist you in estimating the new labor and material requirements for the new scope of work, optionally adjusting the Job’s sales price, and involving other users in the process, ensuring they’re updated, and kept in the loop.

Benefits to you:

  • You can keep your clients happy.
  • Your staff won’t lose valuable time and resources.
  • Change requests won’t have such a substantial impact on your bottom line when dealt with in time.

How can my manufacturing department benefit from Total ETO?

A big challenge for Engineer To Order manufacturers is having materials ready for when manufacturing needs them. Total ETO simplifies the staging of materials for production. Receiving can quickly view purchase orders, log received parts, produce quality inspection reports or initiate Non-conformance reports.

 

As items are received or issued from allocated inventory, Purchasing is instantly updated on the status of materials by job. Total ETO includes real time tracking and managing of your inventory including Work in Progress (WIP) so materials are available when needed.

 

Benefits to you:

  • Purchasing can source materials and issue POs quickly.
  • Materials are available when Manufacturing needs them.
  • There is no costly delay in the project.

Meet one of our Engineer To Order experts.

Our team is full of fun ERP professionals and Engineer To Order business specialists that are ready to show you how your custom design manufacturing company can be more efficient. We can show you how Total ETO Engineer To Order ERP software will work for your company. Call us for a personalized demo.

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Jay

Meet one of our Engineer To Order experts.

Jay

Our team is full of fun ERP professionals and Engineer To Order business specialists that are ready to show you how your custom design manufacturing company can be more efficient. We can show you how Total ETO Engineer To Order ERP software will work for your company. Call us for a personalized demo.