Manufacturing Software for Engineering & Fabrication Units
A drawing becomes a bill of material, the bill becomes a shortage list, the shortage becomes a job — and when the job closes you know what it cost against what you quoted. Material sent out for plating or heat treatment stays on a clock until it comes back.
Watch the manufacturer tourNot a manufacturer? Orbit for shops →Orbit for distributors →
What costs a engineering & fabrication unit money
And what Orbit does about it.
Nobody Knows What the Job Cost
The quote was made from memory and the margin is found out at year end. Orbit freezes a planned cost when the job is raised and sets material, labour and overheads against it when it closes.
Material at the Job Worker Is Out of Sight
Parts sent for plating, coating or heat treatment sit on a challan in a drawer. Orbit keeps every job-work challan on a clock, with what came back, what was rejected and what was consumed there.
The Shortage Is Found After the Job Starts
A run is planned and the stores finds out on the day that the bar stock is not there. Planning explodes the bill of material against stock before the job is raised, and the shortage becomes a requisition.
Built for the way you make things
Every line below is a screen in the app today.
- Multi-level, versioned bills of material with scrap allowance
- Routings and work centres, copied onto each job when it is raised
- Shortage list from the BOM against stock, before the job is raised
- Purchase requisitions with approval, converted to a purchase order
- Gate register — vehicle, supplier challan and time in
- Work orders with material issue, return of unused material and part receipts
- Shop-floor job card with large touch targets — start, finish, log downtime
- Job-work challans with the one-year and three-year return clock and ITC-04 data
- Incoming, in-process and final inspection, with an NCR raised on a fail
- Job costing — planned against actual, variance and scrap, per job
- Engineering change notes recording what changed, why and from when
- Maintenance schedules and breakdown jobs per machine
Plus everything in the manufacturer licence — see all the modules →
Manufacturer tour
See Orbit run a factory
Engineering & Fabrication Unit software — FAQs
What manufacturers ask us first.
Can a bill of material have sub-assemblies?
Yes. A BOM is multi-level, so an assembly can contain a sub-assembly that has its own bill, and the explosion walks down through them. A bill that refers back to itself is refused rather than looped. Each BOM is versioned with one active version per item, and a job keeps the version it was raised on.
How is job work for plating, coating or heat treatment handled?
Material goes out on a job-work challan and stays in your books as goods with the job worker. When it returns you record what came back, what was rejected and what was consumed there, along with the job worker’s charge and its tax. Every challan line carries its return-by date — one year for inputs, three for capital goods — with alerts as it approaches, and the screen produces the ITC-04 figures.
Can operators use it on the shop floor?
Yes. The Shop Floor screen is a job card with large touch targets: an operator starts and finishes an operation, skips one a run does not need, and records why a machine stopped. Labour booked there is absorbed into the job’s cost.
Does it schedule jobs across machines?
There is a work-centre by day board that lays jobs out against each work centre’s capacity, earliest due date first, and flags the ones that will finish late. You can move a job up or down to see what the change does before committing to it. It is a planning board, not an optimiser: there is no automatic sequencing or alternate routing.
Does it work without internet?
Yes. Orbit is a Windows desktop app that keeps your engineering & fabrication unit data in a database on your own PC, so bills of material, work orders, stock, invoicing and reports keep working with no internet at all. A second PC in the office or on the floor connects to the first over your own network.
Does it generate e-invoices and e-way bills?
Orbit raises the GST tax invoice and records the IRN and e-way bill number against it, and it produces the GST registers, GSTR-2B reconciliation and ITC-04 figures. Generating an IRN or an e-way bill from inside the app, and filing returns, are not built — those are done on the government portal or through your CA.
Is there a free trial for manufacturers?
Yes — a 14-day trial of the full manufacturer app on one Windows PC, no credit card needed. Or book a demo and we will walk through it with one of your own products, from its bill of material to a costed job.
How is it priced?
Manufacturing is quoted per business rather than sold off a price list, because it depends on how many users and computers you run. Book a demo and we will send a written quote for your engineering & fabrication unit.
Can I keep using it for billing and accounts?
Yes. A manufacturer licence is everything a shop licence has — GST invoicing, purchases, stock, customers, the full books with trial balance, profit and loss and balance sheet, and Tally export — with the production modules added on top.
Other industries
Book a Demo for Your Engineering Unit
We will take one of your own products from its bill of material to a costed job, and send a written quote.