Requirements checklist
What to ask for when choosing software for plastic component manufacturers.
A checklist built from how plastic component manufacturers work, to print or save as a PDF and bring to any supplier meeting.
What the software should cover
Tick each one that matters to your business.
- Part and revision register
- Customer schedule intake
- First-article approval
- Assembly and rework cells
- Kit packing and returnable trays
- Rejection and corrective action log
Roles that need their own access
Who logs in, and what each person may see or change.
- For plant managers
- For planners
- For cell supervisors
- For quality engineers
- For logistics staff
Reports to ask for
Ask to see each one with your own sample data.
- Customer call-off changes by part number and week
- Stock by part and drawing revision
- Returns by customer, part, mould, cavity and cause
- First-article approvals with sign-off dates
- Cell throughput: passed, scrapped and reworked
- Returnable trays and dunnage held per customer plant
- Moulds by owner with shot counts and next maintenance
Systems it may need to connect to
Note which ones you already run.
- Customer schedule files
- Barcode label printer
- Accounting export
Questions for any vendor
Put these to every supplier you are comparing.
- Can two revisions of one part be live together?
- How are weekly releases compared?
- Can we show a customer the first-article record?
- Does it follow returnable trays?
- How does a customer return reach the cause?
- Can it work with a customer’s own supplier portal?
- Can we export part and tooling records?
- What should I expect from a demo?
- Who looks after the system afterwards?
Where the work usually breaks today
Circle the ones you recognise. They set the order of the project.
- Revisions overlap in the racks
- Schedules change faster than plans
- First-article records go missing
- Rejections are not tracked to a cause
- Tool ownership is vague
Prefer to talk it through? See the plastic component manufacturers page.