Internal tools for small manufacturers.
Prized turns a plain-language description into a working internal tool for your shop. The templates below are live examples built for small manufacturers: open one, see it run on sample data, then reshape it around your part numbers, lines, and shifts.
Machine Downtime Tracker
Log every stop with a reason code and see which machines eat your shift.
Production Schedule Board
Plan by line and shift, record actuals, and see schedule attainment at a glance.
BOM Cost Calculator
Roll up ingredient, packaging, and labor costs into a true cost per unit.
QC Defect Tracker
Move nonconformances from found to closed instead of losing them in email.
Safety Incident & OSHA Log
Log incidents and near misses with severity, days away, and an OSHA 300 style summary.
Inventory Reorder Planner
Reorder points, days of cover, and a low-stock list for every item you buy.
Wholesale Order Tracker
Every wholesale order from received to invoiced, with fill rate at a glance.
Invoice & AR Aging Tracker
Log invoices, watch 30, 60, and 90 day aging buckets, and get a collections call list.
A 15 to 50 person shop usually runs on the same stack: a production schedule in Excel that the plant manager rebuilds every Sunday night, a BOM costing workbook with a tab per product that only one person trusts, a downtime log on a clipboard next to the line, and QC problems scattered across email threads and photos on someone's phone. The numbers that matter, schedule attainment, scrap rate, downtime hours by reason code, true cost per unit after the last material increase, live in four different files that never agree.
The failure mode is always the same. The clipboard never gets typed up, so the downtime Pareto is guesswork. The BOM workbook goes stale the moment a vendor reprices resin or corrugate, so you are quoting off last spring's costs. A nonconformance gets found on Tuesday, discussed in a reply-all, and is still open when the customer calls three weeks later. And the schedule that was accurate at 6 a.m. is fiction by lunch because two hot jobs got inserted and nobody wrote them down.
A purpose-built tool changes who can enter data and when. Operators log a stop with a reason code from a tablet on the floor, so downtime is real data by end of shift. The schedule board shows planned versus actual by line, so attainment is a number instead of an argument. Change one component price and every BOM that uses it rolls up a new cost per unit. Each template below already works this way on sample data. Start from one, tell it what your travelers, work centers, and defect codes look like, and it becomes yours.
Common questions
Can we import the spreadsheets we already run on?
Yes, after you start from a template. Templates open as working examples filled with sample data so you can see exactly how the tool behaves. Once you make one yours, you bring in your real parts, jobs, and history, typically from a CSV export of your current workbook, and the sample data goes away.
We don't have an IT person. How much effort is this really?
You do not write code. You open a template that already works, then describe changes in plain language: rename Work Center to Cell, add a second shift, track scrap in pounds instead of pieces. Most shops can get a usable first version in a single sitting rather than treating it as a project.
Our process doesn't match the template. Can it?
The templates are starting points, not fixed products. If you run four lines, use your own defect codes, or need a traveler field the example lacks, you ask for it in plain language and the tool is rebuilt to match. Everything you see in an example, fields, stages, charts, roll-ups, can be changed the same way.
The tool you actually need is one description away.
Start from a template above or from a blank page: either way, you describe it and Prized builds it.