For contract manufacturing & CNC
Ten machines, three shifts —
industrial customers only see the deadline.
Contract manufacturers deliver to tolerance and on deadline. Gantway plans setup times as fixed blocks, distributes orders across machines by utilization and reports conflicts before the early shift begins.
Gantway Gantt — machine scheduling across 3 shifts with setup-time blocks and employee utilization
Turning, milling and laser centers across three shifts in a single Gantt view. Setup time is visible — and can be minimized.
A typical contract manufacturing operation
Forty employees.
Fifty orders at once.
Whoever coordinates this with spreadsheets and shouts across the shop loses hours every day — and eventually the customer.
Das Problem
Five problems
found in every contract manufacturing operation.
Setup time not planned in — machine blocked, follow-on order late.
Three orders one after another, three different materials, three different clamping fixtures. The setup effort is in the setter's head — not in the plan. The industrial customer calls before the setter is finished.
Shift handover by word of mouth — what the early shift knows, the late shift doesn't.
Machine parameters, remaining quantity, open rework, broken tool. None of it is recorded in writing. The late shift starts searching from scratch. The next batch of scrap follows.
First-article approval delays the production run — but the deadline is already set.
The customer doesn't release the FAI, yet the production order is already in the machine schedule. Either the machine sits idle or you reshuffle half the week.
Machine hourly rates in your head — costing off the mark.
A turning center doesn't cost the same as the laser cutting system. Whoever doesn't keep hourly rates cleanly per machine costs orders too tightly — and only notices at the post-costing.
Rush order from the industrial customer — the plan collapses.
Short-notice loading without an immediate overview of which machine has free capacity. Either you commit too quickly or it takes an hour to figure out what can be shifted.
Wie Gantway hilft
Planning software
that understands contract manufacturing.
Station utilization with traffic-light colors in Gantway
Machine scheduling in eight zoom levels — from the day to the monthly plan.
The digital desk shows all machines on one surface: turning centers, milling centers, lasers, inspection stations. Eight zoom levels from the hourly to the monthly view. Tablet-ready for use on the shop floor.
To the digital deskStation overload as a conflict marker
Conflict engine reports a collision before the shift begins.
Overbooked machine, missing material, unresolved FAI status — Gantway highlights conflicts automatically before they become a problem. No scrolling through spreadsheets, no reconciling by email.
To the conflict enginePlanned and actual values as KPI tiles in controlling
Machine hourly rate per machine — costing without mental arithmetic.
Every machine has its own hourly rate. Pre- and post-costing pull the correct rate automatically — turning-milling center, laser cutting system or inspection station. No manual conversion, no more underestimated orders.
To pre- and post-costingTasks with status badges inside an order
Order management with FAI status and shift log.
Every order carries its status: started, interrupted, remaining quantity, first-article approval pending. The production run only starts once the FAI is entered. The late shift sees at a glance what the early shift left behind.
To order managementEmployee pool for assigning via drag & drop
Qualifications drive the assignment: CNC turning, milling, laser cutting, inspection.
Not every employee can run every machine. Gantway knows the team's qualifications and suggests only suitable employees for an order — across all three shifts.
To employees & qualificationsOrder list with status visible per role
Purchase and sales prices hideable per role — you decide what the shop floor sees.
Purchase prices, machine hourly rates, contribution margins: visible for operations management, hidden for machine operators. Field-level permissions, no separate system needed.
To permissions & auditWhat sets contract manufacturers apart from other operations
Setup-time minimization
through intelligent order sequencing.
In a contract manufacturing operation, it's not only what is produced that matters — but in which sequence. The wrong order mix costs two hours of setup time per shift. Gantway makes the sequence visible and plannable.
Gantway digital desk — machine clusters by material, utilization per machine visible
Material cluster in the schedule
Orders with the same material can be grouped in the scheduling view. The setter sees at a glance which sequence minimizes tool and fixture changes — without checking every order individually.
Machine-specific hourly rate as the costing basis
Turning center, milling center, laser cutting system — each machine has its own rate. The pre-costing pulls it automatically. No manual look-up, no underestimated lot prices.
Load a rush order without a collapse
Industrial customers send rush orders without notice. Gantway shows immediately which machine has free capacity. An order can be pushed back via drag & drop — without manually rebuilding the entire weekly plan.
Traceability for ISO audit and complaints
Batch, material certificate, inspection dimension and FAI status are stored on the order. In case of a customer complaint or audit, you find everything in seconds — no file binder, no asking around on the shop floor.
Was das in Zahlen heißt
Marge, Auslastung, Termine —
an einem Ort.
Turning, milling, laser center: each machine with its own hourly rate. Which orders run profitably? Which eat into the margin? At a glance.
- Machine-specific hourly rate
- Planned/actual per order color-coded
- Purchase/sales prices hideable by role
Gantway controlling — planned/actual per order with machine-specific hourly rate
FAQ
Frequently asked questions. Answered briefly.
How do I commit to reliable delivery dates as a contract manufacturer?
By basing the commitment on planning instead of gut feeling: in Gantway every task knows its predecessors and its capacity. You see whether a requested date is realistic before you commit — and if something slips later, the conflict engine reports the consequences immediately.
The conflict engine in detail How do I see utilization for the coming weeks?
On the digital desk — zoomable from the hourly view to the monthly overview, with utilization per employee. The role-specific dashboard additionally shows metrics on orders, conflicts and utilization.
Dashboard & reports in detail Can we do post-costing per part and line item?
Yes. Labor, material and machine costs are planned per order and line item and compared with actual hours from the time clock — to the hour and the euro. So you know which parts pay off.
Pre- and post-costing in detail What does Gantway cost for a contract manufacturer?
Three plans by active accounts, payable monthly or annually — employees who are only scheduled cost nothing. Test free for 14 days, no credit card.
See pricing Our clients ask about data security — what can we promise?
Servers in Germany, GDPR with a data processing agreement, role-based permissions and an immutable audit log for every change. Tenant separation is doubly secured at the database level.
Permissions & audit in detailYour question wasn't answered?
Ask us directly — in a 30-minute demo or by message. A person answers, not a canned reply.
Or by email: kontakt@gantway.com
On-time delivery for industrial customers —
not by luck, but by plan.
Contract manufacturers who work with Gantway plan setup times firmly, hand over shifts cleanly and commit to deadlines they can keep. Schedule a 15-minute demo — no obligation, no presentation, straight in the system.
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