Counterpart ERP FAQ
Frequently Asked Questions
- Decision makers have access to current costs they can compare to the budget and forecast for a project.
- Management has the information they need, when they need it to make informed choices should project costs become an issue.
- Full transparency into the status of project costs.
COUNTERPART’s seamless integration with SOLIDWORKS and Inventor allows the ERP to use the BOMs that are directly generated by those CAD systems. The ERP pulls together all the information you need into a format that you are already familiar with.
How it benefits you:
- COUNTERPART was built by engineers for engineers. We know what you need and have designed the ERP to deliver that.
- Greatly increased efficiency by allowing engineers to break down complex machinery designs into sub-assemblies.
- Increased productivity for Designers and engineers as a structured BOM provides a rapid and organized way to find materials and manage change requirements.
COUNTERPART provides a powerful search function to find old data. From Quotes created years ago to part purchase history, all historical information is easily searched and accessed for use when you need it.
How it benefits 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 previous data to reduce the risk in setting selling prices and target margins.
- 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.
COUNTERPART provides a separate Procurement Screen that 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 streamlining tools in the application to assist the purchasing agents with creating Request for Quotes (RFQs), Purchase Orders (POs), Inventory Allocations, and other everyday tasks, minimizing their efforts, and maximizing their results.
How it benefits 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.
While COUNTERPART will allow you to generate reports, you will find its display of “live work queues” is even better. You won’t have to open a report because your queue is constantly updating throughout the day as people add demands to the system. There is no need for a static view that is run daily. Just refresh the page and you get the latest demands you can directly address.
COUNTERPART was created by engineers to handle the sell-engineer-manufacture-assemble workflow in the custom manufacturing world. COUNTERPART is designed for manufacturers who create unique and customized products.
How it benefits you:
- Easy to use as COUNTERPART follows the custom design workflow.
- The application is specifically designed for the Engineer To Order manufacturer.
COUNTERPART uses open database technology and supports the latest Windows Operating Systems. Our Engineer To Order (ETO) ERP software Integrates seamlessly with Solidworks, PDM, Inventor, and Quickbooks. Software updates roll out every couple of months, keeping your ERP business solution software up to date and working within the Microsoft OS environment.
Yes. Your BOM needs to be fluid. In COUNTERPART, your BOM can always be altered to reflect changes. COUNTERPART allows engineers to change their BOM as needed, including items they’ve previously released. COUNTERPART will communicate any material changes to procurement for released parts, assemblies, or even an entire BOM!
How it benefits you:
- Engineering maintains total control of their BOM, even if items have been procured.
- Engineers can release assemblies or individual parts more quickly since COUNTERPART will handle over or under-procured items.
- Procurement receives immediate notification of items that need their attention This provides time to resolve any issue and also saves money by reducing purchasing of unnecessary materials or having extra shipments.
COUNTERPART allows engineers to share their BOM, including changes, to Procurement throughout the design process. By ordering long lead items, and then determining the BOM requirements, engineering can release individual items, sub-assemblies, and partial BOMs to procurement once approval for purchase has been received.
How it benefits you:
- Control of the BOM remains with Engineering
- Purchase Orders and Work Orders can be issued before a design is completed. Priority-based lists ensure that components are purchased and/or manufactured on time.
- Color-coded visual identification gives designers the ability to pre-release data so that Purchasing can issue a PO.
How does the workflow move information through COUNTERPART?
COUNTERPART utilizes an easy-to-use-to-use user interface that facilitates the workflow of an engineer-to-order manufacturer. Areas like inventory, engineering, and manufacturing are accessed through the COUNTERPART homepage. You can get quick access to all reports and administrative information to keep your projects moving smoothly.
How it benefits you:
- An easy-to-follow workflow that makes sense.
- Complex information can be simplified for users who need an overview, but don’t have to get into the details.
COUNTERPART provides a top-level Project and Job structure, allowing typical orders (Projects) containing broken-down deliverables and services (Jobs) to be properly arranged, grouped, and tracked. Every job is independent and sales jobs can be tagged to a serial number. You can create multiple hierarchies of order categories (essentially mini jobs) within a job.
Every role has a dedicated page that they work from for their daily tasks. These tasks are sorted generally by due dates. However, the manufacturing work queue is also sorted by readiness and availability, and the assembly work queue by availability.
COUNTERPART will show users everything they need to do, in a sortable format so they can work as they need to. If they don’t have any special sorting needs, then the default views will prioritize the list of demands/tasks for them.
How it benefits you:
- Better project control with transparent work queues
- Manufacturing and Assembly queues have additional sorting options
- Receive critical notifications remotely via electronic devices.
Yes, and that’s the big difference. We are partners with Solidworks and Autodesk and have worked with them to develop COUNTERPART into a seamless 3D CAD integration. It becomes part of your CAD Software allowing designers to easily push BOM information to COUNTERPART.
We can work with other CAD systems as well. If you have assemblies that are not in your CAD software (such as electrical), you can directly create and revise BOMs in COUNTERPART.
If the BOM is tied to CAD, then you have to adjust it in CAD to prevent mismatches. If the BOM is NOT tied to CAD then, with the right permissions, you can revise it as needed directly through the COUNTERPART portal.
The goal is to eliminate double entry wherever possible and reduce data entry mistakes.
How it benefits you:
- One location for designers to edit and view BOMs, giving them complete control of the BOM’s development.
- Increased 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, you eliminate duplicate data entry and errors while increasing the efficiency of the engineering process.
Yes. COUNTERPART has a dedicated filter that allows procurement to keep track of all items that have been ordered, are late, or are projected to be late. COUNTERPART allows users to track supplier performance, and identify delays before they become a problem. This helps to ensure that all required items are received by their promised delivery date or that alternative plans have been put in place.
How it benefits you:
- Efficiently place and track orders that facilitate materials arriving on time.
- Easily identify potential delivery problems on open purchase orders.
- Easily track materials allowing purchasing to expedite open orders.
No. COUNTERPART allows your buyers to buy material directly to a Job. You can also choose to use your available inventory first.
How it benefits you:
- You keep the same processes that work for you.
- Purchasing has more control over required materials.