We probably don't need me to tell you about some of the biggest challenges facing manufacturers. You have to first get the business, and if you quote too high, you won't get the job, and if you quote too low, you won't make any money on the job. You have to deliver the product. It has to be accurate, it has to be on time, and preferably it has to be early since that is what everybody is asking for. If you do all of that and you do it right and you make money on it, then you get to the real goal: repeat business. That is where you really start to build your business.

Some key attributes of an advanced manufacturing system that will truly benefit your business would be:

• Spend less time moving data from one solution to another. If you have 2, 3, or 4 different vendors of software, and you are always moving data from one system to another, you are wasting time. There is no value added when doing that translation. Find one system that can do it all for you, and you will be money ahead.
• You have to be able to adapt to changes. Customers are becoming more and more demanding. They want to send you an early version, an almost finished version, and then right when you are ready to go machine it, they will send you a new version. You must be able to adapt to those changes, quickly and with accuracy. You need to have the confidence to say, "Yes, I can take that change and still get that part started that same day."
• Finally, you need to be able to create accurate and comprehensive deliverables, and everything you need should come out of that single manufacturing system. If you have to stop and go to a different system, say, to make a shop drawing, or edit the code before it goes the machine, again that is not value-added. You want one system that can do it all for you.

Here is a piece of technology that often gets overlooked when you are looking into a manufacturing system. We mentioned earlier about the constant change that customers are putting on you. One of the things that happens is that the part models that they send you are often not finished. You might need to add rounds and drafts. You might need to make your own flat patterns. There is often lots of "design" work that goes on, even in a strictly manufacturing shop. So make sure that your manufacturing system has the world-class sort of CAD tools that the designers use in the first place, because you will need them in the shop.