Prolong vs. Flowlens

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Flowlens Service Management connects the products you distribute to their respective serial numbers, original bill of materials, and manufacturing history. This allows you to quickly identify appropriate spare parts and review past service activities when a customer reaches out. You can monitor service tasks, job tickets, and labor expenses for each item. Designed specifically for manufacturers who both produce and maintain their own equipment, this solution stands apart from generic helpdesk systems added later on. Service Management is an additional module that enhances the Flowlens platform.

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Flowlens captures batch and lot identifiers when stock is received, alongside recording serial numbers for finished items and essential components. Each job is linked to specific batches and serial numbers, allowing for complete traceability from a finished product back to its constituent parts and suppliers, or conversely, from a supplier's batch to every affected unit. It also accommodates unit-of-measure conversions for purchases in bulk while utilizing individual units. The workflow integrates goods inwards inspections and non-conformance issues directly, eliminating the need for separate documentation and ensuring that insights remain closely tied to the operational process.

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Flowlens efficiently manages complex, hierarchical Bill of Materials (BOMs) where each sub-assembly is assigned a unique part number and follows its designated workflow, ultimately contributing to the parent job card. Customers often utilize BOMs that exceed 1,500 lines. The system allows for seamless imports from spreadsheets or CAD files, accommodates multiple suppliers for each part, monitors revisions, and enables real-time modifications or substitutions of parts during active builds. By implementing standardized templates for repeat products, Cap Coder successfully reduced its BOMs from 48,000 to 24,000. BOMs are directly linked to job cards, procurement, and inventory management, while batch and serial tracking extends through to the service phase.

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Flowlens offers a comprehensive inventory management solution that allows users to monitor stock levels by location using FIFO, LIFO, or average cost methods. With the capacity to handle unlimited parts and SKUs, it features built-in batch and serial number traceability. The system generates real-time shortage reports that create purchase orders based on outstanding job cards and sales requests, while also adhering to supplier minimum order quantities and pack-size adjustments. This enables automatic population of purchase orders, clearly indicating what needs to be acquired and what is already accounted for. Incoming goods inspections ensure that quality checks are conducted as parts arrive, and stock is allocated according to specific job requirements. Designed specifically for manufacturers of devices, equipment, and machinery, Flowlens ensures that inventory remains linked to the respective builds. Additionally, purchase and inventory records seamlessly integrate with accounting platforms like Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage 50.

Flowlens is a cloud-based manufacturing solution designed specifically for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that create intricate devices, equipment, and machinery to customer specifications. It consolidates various functionalities such as multi-level bills of materials (BOMs), sub-assemblies, job costing, procurement, inventory management, shop floor oversight, quality data collection, and sales and service operations into a single platform, eliminating the need for spreadsheets, shared drives, and disparate applications. Users can easily add or replace parts on an active job card, and recurring production runs can be initiated from pre-existing templates. Flowlens seamlessly integrates with accounting software like Xero, QuickBooks, and Sage 50. A specialized implementation team based in the UK is available to assist with setup, data migration, and training. The base subscription starts at £479 plus VAT per month and includes access for four office users and two shop floor users.

Flowlens is intentionally designed not to function as a conventional ERP system. Instead, it focuses specifically on the manufacturing and post-sales aspects of operations, offering extensive features for managing BOMs, procurement, inventory, production processes, quality control, sales orders, and service management. Financial management remains within your existing accounting software, seamlessly integrating with popular platforms such as Xero and QuickBooks, with Sage 50 available as an option. This integration ensures that data related to customers, suppliers, invoices, and ledgers is synchronized automatically, eliminating the need for manual entry. For instance, Cap Coder, a manufacturer of capping and filling machinery, experienced an efficiency boost, reducing the time taken for processing spare parts and sales orders by 18 to 20% after consolidating their operations from two separate systems into one cohesive platform. Flowlens is particularly well-suited for expanding manufacturing businesses with a workforce of up to approximately 100 employees.

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Flowlens deconstructs each task into a series of workflow stages, each associated with specific personnel, equipment, operational guidelines, and material listings. Operators can view their assignments through a tablet app on the shop floor, where they can log their hours, record quality metrics, and complete various tasks. Managers have real-time visibility into the production schedule, allowing them to monitor items that are on schedule, currently underway, or overdue. As parts are utilized and products are assembled, batch and serial numbers are documented, ensuring traceability from the receipt of raw materials to the final product. This step-by-step control operates within the same platform as your bill of materials, inventory, and sales orders, eliminating the need for a separate manufacturing execution system (MES) integration.

Flowlens efficiently manages materials based on verified demand in real-time. It integrates job cards, sales orders, and warehouse requests to create a continuous shortage report, eliminating unexpected shortages. The system automatically breaks down multi-level BOMs, ensuring that each sub-assembly follows its dedicated workflow to the main job. Purchase orders are automatically populated with any shortages while adhering to minimum order requirements set by suppliers. It meticulously tracks actual labor and material expenses for each project using either FIFO or average costing methods. Tailored specifically for small to medium-sized manufacturers who create intricate products on demand, Flowlens is an original solution rather than a scaled-down version of enterprise software. The starting price for the base platform is £479 plus VAT per month.