Get Organized?Get Computerized

"For in-plants, customer service is one of the primary reasons for existence," notes Harold Rapp, vice president of sales for Avanti. "Without a tracking system, how do you know what jobs are where?"

Beyond just keeping jobs organized, Rapp stresses other values a computer management system brings to an in-plant. "If you don't have a system that tells you what you've done to allow you to validate your existence, then what is your value to the company? Even if they don't charge back, they can say 'we provided jobs of this value for each department.' "