Need Help!- Advice on 5-Axis and ERP

[Lawsonmh15]

Hi, my name is Matt and I am the IT director for an aerospace machine shop in Englewood, CO. Recently, the owner has decided to make some serious investments in an effort ramp up business in numerous ways. The IT infrastructure and ERP software is being completely revamped, we are currently working on attaining AS9100(C) certification (estimated completion of April of this year), recently purchased a Zeiss Accura II DCC CMM (built a climate-controlled inspection room to ensure tolerances are accurate) and the owner has been looking at 5-axis machines.

However, one of the guys on the floor said he'd heard that we were no longer looking at a 5-axis, which kind of surprised me (as well as the employees). From what I know about this industry (which, admittedly, isn't much) and more importantly what the Quality, and floor guys have stated, a 5-axis machine is essentially a license to print $$$. Granted, I understand the inherent question would be whether or not you even have the opportunity to get that work and what I was told by one of the estimators, is that there is a ton of 5-axis work available which we can't bid on, being that we don't have the machine.

The shop I work for is VERY well established (been in business since 1967) and has great relationships with the big-hitters contracting the aerospace work with the government. The staff's cummulative industry experience is ~650 years and we currently have 29 employees and a regulatory consultant currently on staff.

The desired endgame would be to keep the shop running 24/7 and landing enough work to expand well past the 18,000 SF we currently use.

When I was charged with the task of deciding on which ERP software to entertain demos on, I had a feeling E2 would end up being the winner, and while we've only had one demo from them, it was incredible what the package is capable of and will likely become the new software as the other two we're looking at are M1 (haven't heard anything good) and Exact Jobboss (heard alot of bad things). I was hoping to get some opinions from those whom have experience with E2, as well as anyone who has used both Jobboss and E2 (we have a woman in Quality who has used both and said E2 was far and away the best SW available for what we're doing). The owner loved the E2 demo and his biggest reason for making the transition is to greatly reduce the amount of time needed to quote/estimate. I found Micro Estimating software and skimmed through it and mentioned it to the owner who is leary of actually putting the company's finances in it's intangible hands. Has anyone used the micro estimating software module for E2? If so, how has it worked out?

Lastly, are there any higher ups on the board who have a similar sized business and upgraded to a 5-axis and immediately began seeing work flood in? Again, the primary function is Aerospace, however, the owner is offered RFQ's for medical and turns them away, but is beginning to consider it more each day I believe, but (and please correct me if I'm wrong) I believe he needs a solid 5-axis in order to do the work.