Simple parts inventory program? (free or opensource)

[george_graves]

Can anyone recommend a simple to inventory program?

The reason why I ask is last night it took me 7 hours to figure out what I needed to order from mouser. It was not fun trying to figure out what I had on hand, what was needed, ect..

To give you an idea of my needs - I need to keep track of about 1500 parts, and be able to group them into 30 assembles.

My budget is $0. So, even an old dos program would be fine by me. Just as long as it works.

(BTW - I don't want to roll my own in excel or access)

Any suggestions? Advice?

[karlgg]

As a repentant database developer, I can't give any hints about what software to use (since I had to make them myself) but I'll mention a sticky point... You'll have to be fanatical about updating an inventory that big as you add & subtract. The minute you get behind in either direction, the whole affair will make things worse rather than better.

Once you've chosen a package to use, make sure you have some sort of system in place to keep it current! (Much like a bookstore that says "the computer says we have one!" but can't find it anywhere, a bad database is worse than no database)

[sorceress sarah]

As a repentant database developer, I can't give any hints about what software to use (since I had to make them myself) but I'll mention a sticky point... You'll have to be fanatical about updating an inventory that big as you add & subtract. The minute you get behind in either direction, the whole affair will make things worse rather than better.

Once you've chosen a package to use, make sure you have some sort of system in place to keep it current! (Much like a bookstore that says "the computer says we have one!" but can't find it anywhere, a bad database is worse than no database)

Sound advice. I personally love BANNED, and BANNED Application Express is FREE and easy to develop simple applications. This one could be up and running in two hours.