Packing Lists (Software Required)

[pete10uk]

Hi There

 

Has anyone got any advice on software to aid packing lists?

 

I'm looking for a native Apple software package to aid with Hire and Installation booking, what I would like to do is roughtley set out equipment on screen and drag different cabling between each piece of equipment and enter the lengths, at the end of the process I would like a list of the equipment needed and lengths of the different cabling used. I guess it will need to differentiate between drums of cabling and pre made cables to determine how many drums of a particular type of cable are required and how many 10, 20 or 30 meter pre-made cables are required.

 

In my own mind the software would be quite simple in both use and design and someone must make such a thing. It may be I'm looking for something to specific to the AV industry and there is a general product out there that can be customised.

 

Any help would be appreciated, I tired of using pen and paper!

 

Cheers Pete

[simschr]

Hi Pete,

 

Unfortunately I don't know of an application that does exactly what you want out of the box, but it maybe worth looking at File Maker? You should be able to achieve something similar to what you're after!

 

Chris

[benweblight]

Personally I'm not sure how well that kind of system would work for cabling and would be quite complex to implement. I tend to work out roughly what lengths of cabling I will need and then put 30%ish on top as spares (ofcourse this could be built into such a system I guess). You could have a system that allowed you to enter cabling manually....maybe with some templates for different types of events.

[Stuart91]

We have tended to write packing lists up as Word documents. If the same event rolls around next year, you can refer back to last year's pack list. For new events, they tend to get written from scratch, or based on a similar event if it makes sense to do so.

 

I did toy with the idea of a Filemaker database - making it easier to search through them all - but decided it wasn't worth the effort. I might revisit it later on.

 

At the very simplest end of things, you could use a utility like TextExpander so that if you type "D&Bsystem" into Word it will expand that into a list of all the components, cabling, and sundries that need to make it into the van for the system to function. However it gets more complicated if you can send the same system out in different configurations with differing numbers of boxes etc.

 

Some of the more sophisticated hire software packages will generate packing lists as part of the overall service, although whether it's worth the additional cost and effort of implementing such a system is up for debate, especially so with smaller companies.

[Pete McCrea]

I don't know of any of the rental software packages that let you do this graphically. I'm sure it could be done, but would require custom programming. You could possibly use something such as an Autocad program and insert blocks for each item, then run a schedule that gives the quantity of those blocks.

 

As for how most people do it? They run a rental management software. We use Easyjob, as do many other companies in the UK. It will enable you to manage the whole process and not just look after the cabling, but the quoting, management and invoicing of the job.

 

I would suggest that the best time for a rental house to implement a system is when it's small- that way it is easier to get the kit on the system accurately, and define the way it should be used. It can then grow with the business as it develops.

 

For us it's meant that we can all see what is happening when, and what is booked on it. I can very quickly take a phone enquiry, check that the kit they want is available and give them a price, and quickly generate a picklist and delivery note -quicker even than writing this post.

 

That said there are still times when I sketch the system out, and then tick off things as I add them to the job in the software, simply so I don't forget a specific cable- the sketch often then comes to site so people know my thinking for the set up.

 

HTH,

Pete.

[pete10uk]

Thanks for all the responses.

 

Unfortunately I may have worded the question wrong and the words "Packing Lists" have thrown the topic off the solution I was looking for. My Bad! Sorry.

 

I'm looking more for a solution to assist with the quoting and stock ordering stage of a job.

My immediate use for a system would be to help with a largish installation job (well large for me). We have 6 small meeting rooms which open out into 2 larger rooms and again this can opened out into 1 large room for around 200 people. There will be 9 projectors in total with points down the room to place 6 relay plasma screens for when the room is in the largest format. The whole system will be controlled via RS232 in quite a complex mess of cabling, switches, scailers and mixers.

 

Firstly when quoting the jobs like this, I make a diagram and draw on all the major Kit in roughly the correct places, I then pop on the cabling and route it roughly where the route will be, and add any converting, distribution or smaller pieces of equipment thinking about connections as I go, I then count all the equipment required and pop it in to a spread sheet. It is quite time consuming and I always have a some issues reading what I've written down on the diagram, even on the smallest jobs. The problem with this scale of job is that to make a diagram with enough space to fit everything on is challenging, and trying to figure out what each cable is, is quite impossible unless I colour code never mind the total cable length.

 

What I imagine would be the solution, would be something like the blank page from Word, where you can draw on a text box with the text "NEC NP-600 Projector". It would then allow you to save the text box for later recall. you would then do the same for a "kramer VGA 1:2 DA" and a "VGA+A Face Plate". then you would click make pre made cable, you would label it "VGA 5m M-M", you would then select the cable and click and drag between the faceplate and the VGA amp and again from the VGA amp to the projector. you would add a second Projector from the recall function and pop on 2 x 10m of audio cabling from a drum. when finished the program would tell you that you need:-

2 x NEC NP-600 Projector

2 x VGA 5m M-M

1 x kramer VGA 1:2 DA

1 x VGA+A Face Plate

20m Drum of Audio Cabling.

 

If it was cleaver you could even pop in supplier and order code information and even pricing for ordering purposes.

Most of the jobs I do, utilise the same base equipment and for the past 8 years and 3 companies I've worked using bits of paper with masses of lines on it.

 

There has to be a better way!

 

Thanks for any advise.

 

Pete

[Wol]

I think I know what sort of application you're looking for. I had a similar post a few months ago on here asking for a similar piece of software to allow things such as cable assemblies to be worked out, and to show a schematic view of what was connected to what, but unfortunately I never found any real helpful software to do this. In the end I ended up using a piece of software used for schematics in electronics. I still had to manually do calculations and checks of lengths of cable however.

 

Would be nice to have something like you described though, which could work out what cables were necessary, automatically add in little things like gender benders, or give an alternative option of a gender changing cable, or a 3pin DMX + 3>5 adapter, or a 3>5 adapter + 5pin DMX style setups, and to configure it closest to what you have in stock. I imagine it could get quite complex quite quickly, especially when you have things like different types of cable, support for multicore connectors like socapex, 16A grelcos / trelcos.

 

*ponders starting to write one*

[Brian]

Stardraw?

[pete10uk]

I had seen Stardraw, and think it will do what I want and probably more, but at £1600 and only on the Windows platform, not really a contender as we are a small company using mac computers (except for hire stock). I'm not saying I want a free program but I think £200 - £300 is all I'm prepared to pay and on a commercial basis is all it's worth. If I knew where to start I would write the software myself.

There is also a package called ePlan 8 by a company called Rittal, but this goes way beyond what I want to do letting you specify what connections are on the kit and I think what the connections do. I think it is used for detailed plans for whole buildings and probably has a price tag 20 times the budget has.

[Brian]

Pete,

 

if you don't mind creating the equipment libraries yourself then have a look at software designed for doing circuit diagrams. Out of the box they know about connections, labelling those connections and extracting the data out at the end ready to go into the circuit board layout software. You can attach data to the circuit elements and extract that as well.

 

Being a PC user I can't recommend anything from personal experience.

[Pete McCrea]

If your working on multiple installations, then I'd probably suggest Stardraw is the way to go. Yes it is expensive, but then the cost should be recovered over several installations, and also in being able to sell your services better through potentially more detailed quotes and documentation.

 

Another way to consider the cost would be the time spent creating your libraries for a bespoke software - say you spend two or three days fettling the software. That could be close on £500 worth of time. Buy Stardraw, and you can be using it in 15 minutes. So you save three of your precious man days creating the software, which could either be used drumming up more work, or on Holiday....

 

If your already running a PC for rental, then it might be worth considering terminal serving the connections so the software can be accessed on a Mac. We do this for Easyjob and other PC programs we use such as AutoCAD. Also means that they can be accessed outside the office easily.

 

One option for consideration for the Mac could be OmniGraffle. You can build libraries and connect the symbols to each other. But I don't think it will sum the number of symbols placed in each document.

[dbuckley]

Another vote for using schematic capture software - I used to do computer network diagrams using that.

 

The reason schematic capture is good is that they can all produce a "bill of materials" at the end, which is your list that you want. They'll also produce a list of connections (the "netlist") which is a ASCII text file, and if you're a bit handy with programming you can use that to produce a list of connection types.

[ossie]

Another vote for using schematic capture software - I used to do computer network diagrams using that.

 

The reason schematic capture is good is that they can all produce a "bill of materials" at the end, which is your list that you want. They'll also produce a list of connections (the "netlist") which is a ASCII text file, and if you're a bit handy with programming you can use that to produce a list of connection types.

 

Could you please give an example of one of these programs for Windows.

[Brian]

Could you please give an example of one of these programs for Windows.

I use EasyPC for real paid-for work. Eagle is quite popular with hobbyists.

[Wol]

I'll second Eagle. The free version only limits the size of the PCB output that you can produce, and not the schematic (or at least it only restricted that the last time I used it). Theres a fair few tutorials out there to get you started with it, creating the library items. Getting used to the keyboard shortcuts is very handy though!