Collaborator Limit

We’ve created Lite and Basic plans for smaller teams to make Aligni more accessible and affordable as you grow.

Grant access to additional users via collaborator seats. A comprehensive role-based access control (RBAC) system is in place so that you can assign roles and access to each collaborator or groups of collaborators.

Collaborator Cost

The Basic and Pro plans enable the addition of extra Contributors, with an additional cost per seat per month.

A comprehensive role-based access control (RBAC) system is in place so that you can assign roles and access to each collaborator or groups of collaborators.

Viewer/Commenter Limit

We’ve created Lite and Basic plans for smaller teams to make Aligni more accessible and affordable as you grow.

Grant limited access to additional users via viewer seats. Viewers can view data, and comment on discussions when permitted. Because of their diminished role, extra viewer seats are available in bundles of 10 at the same cost as a single collaborator seat.

Viewer/Commenter Cost

The Basic and Pro plans enable the addition of extra Viewers, with a cost per seat.

A comprehensive role-based access control (RBAC) system is in place so that you can assign roles and access to each viewer or groups of viewers. Because of their diminished role, extra viewer seats are available in bundles of 10 at the same cost as a single collaborator seat.

Data Retention

Keeping detailed audit history of past actions, discussions, and other records can be a helpful operational tool. By default, your data retention automatically increases as your organization matures, but you may limit data retention if you wish.

Aligni provides free data retention for such history for up to a year depending on your organization’s subscription plan. Each year of additional data retention incurs a monthly fee.

Additional Data Retention

Detailed audit history is retained for one year free of charge. Increase data retention by adding additional years, billed monthly.

By default, your data retention automatically increases as your organization matures, but you may change this at any time.

Data Storage

Approval Workflow

Offered at the Pro level, approval workflow stages allow you to gate certain workflows (such as quoting, purchasing, and change management) with collaborator approvals, engaging more eyes on important processes.

A comprehensive role-based access control (RBAC) system is in place so that you can assign approval roles and access to collaborators.

Item Master

The item master is your centralized repository for comprehensive information about your company’s products, materials, and other costs.

It acts as a master record, consolidating crucial details such as part numbers, descriptions, specifications, costs, suppliers, and other essential attributes.

Use of a well-managed item master ensures accuracy and consistency in data across your organization, facilitating effective management of inventory, production, and procurement processes. By providing a single source of truth for product information, the item master streamlines decision-making, enhances collaboration, and contributes to overall operational efficiency.

Item Limit

Additional Items

Custom Parameters

Custom part parameters allow you to customize your item master database for your organization’s needs or for specialized component requirements.

You can define a list of custom parameters as well as the type of data that is stored in each parameter then associate those parameters with the part types in your database.

BOM Management

Keep everyone on the same page from design to production to maintenance with centralized Bill of Materials/BOM management. Multi-level (hierarchical) BOMs capture the makeup and cost of the entire product including both material and non-material items such as labor.

Integrated engineering change management offers everyone in your organization a clear perspective of the history and current status of your products and subassemblies.

BOM Revisions

BOM revisions follow a draft / release cycle to help you manage revision control that is fully integrated with Aligni’s engineering change management records (ECRs and ECOs).

Keep everyone on the same page with comprehensive revision history and links to the changes included each revision — including pending changes that have not yet been incorporated.

Use Aligni’s BOM comparison feature to see item-by-item differences between BOM revisions.

Engineering Change Management

Well-executed engineering change management is an essential part of the product lifecycle documentation. Aligni’s ECM system is designed to be simple, effective, and efficient – perfect for small- to mid-sized companies that need exceptional documentation and quality management without excessive red tape and burdensome process.

By integrating PLM and MRP, your company’s ECM process is available to both design and manufacturing teams, improving collaboration, operational efficiency, and quality.

Active ECR

An engineering change request (ECR) is considered active until it has been resolved and closed. Aligni provides one active ECR at the PLM Lite and MRP Basic plans to enable smaller organizations to explore the functionality before upgrading.

Active ECO

An engineering change order (ECO) is considered active until it has been resolved and closed. Aligni provides one active ECO at the PLM Lite and MRP Basic plans to enable smaller organizations to explore the functionality before upgrading.

Vaults

Vendor Quotes (ActiveQuote)

Greatly improve your vendor communication with Aligni’s fully-integrated ActiveQuote quoting system and get advantaged pricing by moving from expensive catalog vendors (e.g. Digi-Key and Mouser) to broadline distributors such as Arrow and Avnet.

Open Quotes

An open request for quote (RFQ) is one that has been issued by your organization and is still editable by the supplier(s).

The number of open RFQs is limited in lower plans to provide limited access to the functionality for evaluation purposes. Pro plans have unlimited open RFQs.

Purchasing

Build and issue POs directly from production shortage reports and BOMs for error-free efficiency. When working with broadline distributors such as Avnet and Arrow, Aligni provides the convenience of app-based purchasing without the expense of catalog distribution.

Open Purchases

An open purchase order is one that has been issued by a buyer to a supplier but has not yet been fully executed or completed.

The number of open purchase orders is limited in PLM plans to provide limited access to the functionality for evaluation purposes. MRP plans offer unlimited open POs.

Warehouse Limit

Warehouses are distinct locations for parts. Typically, these are used to differentiate inventory amounts in geographically distinct locations. You can organize inventory within warehouses with unlimited zones (or areas). Warehouses are important to help you analyze material requirements for production activities.

PLM plans have limited need for inventory. MRP plans, with their focus on inventory management, are more likely to employ one or more warehouses.

Additional Warehouses

Transfers

Plan, coordinate, and document material transfers accurately and easily between warehouses or warehouse areas.

Safety Stock Manager

Monitor, adjust, and respond appropriately to continual inventory changes with the safety stock manager to help prevent stock-outs and production downtime.

Leverage the TimeWarp™ feature to forecast future inventory levels based on purchasing activities and production demand, optimize procurement of long lead-time components, and stay ahead of the game.

Bulk Import

Import bulk inventory information quickly and easily from CSV data. Particularly helpful when migrating from existing MRP systems, this feature can also be helpful for bulk inventory loads from customer-specific workflows.

Bulk Adjustments

Use bulk adjustments to manage and document bulk changes to multiple inventory counts for activities such as month-end reconciliations, cycle counts, or regular sales adjustments.

Build Manager

A build manages the inventory adjustments related to the transformation of components on a BOM to a completed assembly. Builds are at the center of all material shortage, procurement, and inventory management processes in Aligni.

The build manager provides buyer/planners with a comprehensive view of upcoming (and past!) production activities. Use the configurable calendar view (production schedule) to keep your products flowing and customer demand satisfied.

Active Builds

Active builds are assembly jobs (a.k.a. batches) that are either planned or in progress. Completed (finalized) builds do not count against this limit and are only subject to your organization’s data retention interval for long-term reference.

At the MRP Pro level, additional builds may be purchased if your production schedule has more activity or a longer time horizon.

Additional Builds (50 builds)

This is the quantity of production builds (“batches” or “jobs”) that can be created or actively worked on at one time in each plan level. These builds stay active until they are completed. There is no limit to the number of additional builds you may add to your subscription.

Equipment

Manage production assets after the build has finalized using Aligni’s Equipment (or Configuration Management). Designed specifically for equipment, lab benches, or other assembled goods, configuration management allows you to manage the post-production lifecycle of assemblies with detailed logs and subassembly swaps, if needed.

GraphQL API

The Aligni GraphQL API provides secure access to data within your site without having to use the Aligni interface. Develop custom applications or integrations with other software that take advantage of your Aligni database.

API Rate Limit (calls / min)

API Webhooks

Slack (beta)

Ultracart (beta)

Aligni’s native UltraCart integration enables inventory synchronization when orders are fulfilled through your eCommerce store.

WooCommerce (beta)

Xero (beta)

Octopart Add-On

Octopart Queries (total per month)

Searchable Item Master Database

Aligni provides robust search functionalities, including part and quick search options. Our centralized item master database ensures that searching within both PLM and MRP systems grants immediate access to all data across your Aligni organization. This empowers you and your team with strategic insights from current and historical data resources.

Parameterized Search

Instead of performing a generic keyword search, parameterized search allows users to specify specific attributes, characteristics, or conditions that the search results must meet to refine and narrow down search results.

Utilizing parameterized search and built-in support for an expanded set of SI Prefixes, users can leverage powerful item searches and data access.

Alternate Parts Management

Maintain a list alternates for any part in your database and use these selections as deviations during the build process. We define multiple compatibility levels based on two ways to define the relationship between a part and an alternative:

Equivalent – This means the alternative is suitable for any installation because they have identical parameters in the relevant dimensions.

Alternate – This means the alternative is similar, but substitution requires engineering consideration to make sure the alternate is appropriate for use.

Custom Part Parameters

Custom part parameters allow you to customize your item master database for your organization’s needs or for specialized component requirements.

You can define a list of custom parameters as well as the type of data that is stored in each parameter then associate those parameters with the part types in your database.

Document Management

Compliance Information

Satisfy regulatory and process compliance requirements with a well-managed, well-maintained, and well-audited item master in Aligni.

Build your quality management system (QMS) from a solid foundation for more maintainable, sustainable, and efficient operations.

Where Used Visibility

“Where Used” refers to knowledge of which parts are used on which BOMs within your products. This goes without saying with Aligni.

With a database-backed PLM and MRP system, this is easily extended to where-bought, where-stored, where-built, and many other where’s, when’s, and why’s.

BOM Management

Keep everyone on the same page from design to production to maintenance with centralized Bill of Materials/BOM management. Multi-level (hierarchical) BOMs capture the makeup and cost of the entire product including both material and non-material items such as labor.

Integrated engineering change management offers everyone in your organization a clear perspective of the history and current status of your products and subassemblies.

Part and Assembly Revision Control

Manage and track changes to parts and assemblies with robust change management and BOM revision control. Changes are annotated and recorded for historical record so everyone can follow the product lifecycle journey and ensure that production rollout is handled gracefully and deliberately.

Aligni’s role-based access control (RBAC) features ensure that only authorized personnel can make or review these changes, enhancing security and maintaining data integrity.

Change Management Process

Aligni features a highly integrated Engineering Change Management system within its platform. Multiple departments can easily access and manage change requests and orders, ensuring that updates are automatically reflected in your BOMs and builds.

PLM and MRP integration keeps engineering seamlessly aligned with procurement and production to reduce overhead and costly errors.

Quality Management Process (Coming Soon!)

Aligni’s intuitive quality control features not only enable your team to track part and inventory quality, but also sensible low-overhead procedures for moving items into and out of quarantine, reducing the likelihood of cumbersome workflows that lead to circumvention.

Fully-integrated task management helps your team communicate, assign roles, and keep operations going smoothly.

Information Hub

Designed for collaboration from the start, Aligni acts as the information hub for your company, tying together engineering, supply chain, production, and quality control with a single source of truth.

Share Item Master Database

Aligni is built upon a powerful item master database, serving as a single source of truth that facilitates seamless information sharing across your organization and with external vendors.

A centralized system enables multiple users to access and update information concurrently, ensuring that everyone in the company operates with the most up-to-date data available. This ultimately enhances collaboration, reduces errors, and improves overall efficiency.

Departmental Dashboards

Role-Based Access Control

Aligni provides access control for users on its system based on roles and permissions set by the organization’s administrator(s). This allows site administrators a compromise between simplicity and flexibility when granting user access to the company’s data without sacrificing data integrity or security.

Cloud-Based Security

Aligni’s cloud-based security provides scalability, secure remote access, automatic updates to maintain the latest security measures, advanced data protection with encryption, and robust disaster recovery solutions. Together, these technologies drive operational excellence and improve data security and availability.

Automatic Data Backup

While your data is kept secure in our cloud storage, Aligni can periodically make a backup of most of the information in your database that you can download locally for safe keeping. Use this backup as a running snapshot of your data for reference, source material for use in another system, or just to give you peace of mind.

Vendor Access

Improve and streamline vendor communications with the Aligni vendor portal. This portal provides flexible access when submitting RFQs and POs, ensuring vendors can easily access necessary information.

Data vaults offer a secure place to share attachments needed for builds, enhancing communication and collaboration with vendors.

Customize Branding

With MRP Pro and PLM Pro subscriptions, organizations have the ability to change the branding of several Aligni interfaces with their logos and colors, adding a professional touch to vendor communications.

GraphQL API

The Aligni GraphQL API provides secure access to data within your site without having to use the Aligni interface. Develop custom applications or integrations with other software that take advantage of your Aligni database.

Vendor Approval (Approved Vendor List)

Manage vendor approvals within your quality management system using Aligni vendor records, the associated discussion system, attachments for records such as ISO certificates, README notes, and more.

Aligni records vendor approval dates and optional expirations and will email reminders prior to expiration to help your review process.

If you need additional control to approve specific vendors at the part level, you can optionally enable that workflow as well.

Preferred Vendor Selection

When multiple vendors are available for the same part, you may optionally flag one vendor as “preferred” to help guide buyer/planners, simplify your supply logistics, or funnel spending to a favored vendor.

Vendor Performance History

Leverage historical data stored in Aligni to make strategic purchasing decisions based on cost, lead time, promise dates, quantity, capacity, responsiveness, and reliability.

Time to Delivery

Keep a close watch on vendor performance with promise date history via the vendor portal and line item delivery performance in purchase histories.

Open Order Reports

Part and material orders are easily managed through the supply chain dashboard. Review open RFQs and open orders quickly to keep vendors to task and stay on schedule. Filter and sort open line items for production and financial planning purposes by price, vendor, manufacturer, promise date, and many others.

Price Tracking

Save time and money with accurate and up-to-date vendor pricing without searching through endless emails. Informed buyers make better decisions and Aligni puts historical quote and price-paid information front and center during the quoting and procurement process.

The purchase history graph shows past price and quantity buys for easy trend analysis. And the price helper tool reveals relevant information during the quoting and buying process to help you make better decisions faster.

Promise Date Tracking

Your company’s own dedicated vendor portal grants vendors easy access to active (and closed) RFQs and POs, allowing them to update your order backlog promise dates directly for efficient tracking.

These updates are reflected across Aligni, improving visibility into delivery expectations, and providing a historical record to keep your production line informed and your vendors accountable for schedule slips.

Vendor Portal

Aligni provides a built-in website (the vendor portal) dedicated to giving your vendors direct access to your RFQs and POs making it easy for them to see what’s current active, which items are currently outstanding, and offering an easy way to update order backlog promise dates.

We’ve made the vendor portal remarkably approachable to reduce the effort required by your vendors to participate. It’s easy to use, does not require credentials other than an email link from you, and even includes a built-in training slide deck.

RFQ Management

Create, send, and track RFQs using Aligni’s integrated quoting system, ActiveQuote, for more reliable, more accurate, and more searchable vendor quoting. Say goodbye to piles of emails and endless frustration.

Use the Part Cart to create quotes directly from BOMs, builds, or material shortage reports quickly, more accurately, and with fewer errors than ever.

Quote Management

Vendor quotes (or offers) and vendor part numbers are baked into the Aligni item master, making them available throughout the system for review, comparison, assembly cost analysis, and easy selection for purchasing.

Historical pricing information is crucial for identifying trends and monitoring vendor performance. Quotes are available at your fingertips during purchasing for speedy, well-informed decision making.

Purchase Order Management

Create, send, and manage vendor purchase orders with procurement tools fully-integrated with your item master, BOMs, inventory, and build management. Use the Part Cart to quickly create purchases directly from material shortage lists, safety stock requirements, or BOMs and reduce costly errors.

Data Vaults (with audit)

Vaults are managed collections of attachments that are associated with parts (or their revisions) and can be shared with suppliers through quotes or purchases. They provide access control, integrity verification, event logging, and notifications to ensure that the data exchange between the user and the supplier is efficient, convenient, and secure.

Parts on Hand Reporting

Comprehensive multi-warehouse inventory management functionality has been part of Aligni’s DNA from the very beginning.

From purchase to assembly into finished goods, Aligni tracks inventory along every point of the journey with advanced features such as serialization, build reservation, material transfers, and a complete audit history. Aligni knows what you have, where it is, where it came from, and what it costs.

You can even track finished goods inventory such as complex machinery or installations using Aligni’s configuration management (equipment) features.

Material Shortage Reporting

Insufficient inventory is kryptonite to production operations and can result in costly delays and customer dissatisfaction. Aligni’s Material Shortage Report (MSR) is designed to answer three questions:

• What do I need?
• When do I need it?
• When do I need to order it?

Our unique data model provides answers to these questions in real-time with the most up-to-date information available in your database including inventory on hand, inventory in transit, part on order, allocated production needs, and sales demand forecasts.

The highly configurable MSR gives your buyer/planners the ability to break down big puzzles into manageable activities by focusing on specific builds, time periods, parts, manufacturers, or part categories.

Safety Stock Manager

Monitor, adjust, and respond appropriately to continual inventory changes with the safety stock manager to help prevent stock-outs and production downtime.

Leverage the TimeWarp™ feature to forecast future inventory levels based on purchasing activities and production demand, optimize procurement of long lead-time components, and stay ahead of the game.

Demand Estimates

Ensure production activities satisfy product demand with Aligni’s customer (or channel) demand estimator.

With the demand estimator, you can model future demand to project how your production schedule meets that demand.

Whether you use demand estimates to “stress test” your production schedule or to make real-time adjustments as demand becomes more certain, the inventory outlook always represents the most up-to-date forecast.

Inventory Forecasting

Visualize and proactively manage inventory with the inventory forecast chart. Aligni provides an intuitive visualization of inventory needs by plotting incoming and outgoing inventory events over a backdrop of safety stock settings.

Purchases, material transfers, consumption, sales demand, and safety stock levels are all depicted on a configurable, easy-to-read chart. Aligni’s real-time data model assures that this chart represents the most up-to-date inventory picture.

Production Forecasting

Record and maintain customer and channel sales forecasts in the demand estimator for financial (net and gross revenue) forecasts and production targets.

Accurately model component consumption from these demand estimates without committing or allocating real inventory and play out different scenarios with a configurable “prominence” setting available to each demand profile.

Demand estimates are integrated into the inventory forecast chart visualization to help you balance production to meet demand.

Consumption Reporting

Aligni’s inventory management and build management features were built around the build, a central record capturing the activity, discussion, and components used for a job / build.

Completed builds maintain a persistent record of the items used on the specific job, any deviations required, and the inventory cost of each for “to-the-penny” accuracy.

Built-in attrition attributes allow you to assign standard attrition to part types or specific parts to reduce shortages due to loss during assembly.

Clear to Build

A razor-sharp understanding of material shortages is critical to the production of electronic BOMs with hundreds or even thousands of components. Aligni’s proprietary data model enables real-time computation of the MSR so you don’t have to wait for a daily or weekly MRP run.

Easy to read and highly configurable, the MSR lets you know exactly which builds are clear to build and what you need if they aren’t. The TimeWarp™ feature even lets you run what-if scenarios to determine your requirements if you need to reschedule a build.

Demand Forecasting

Record and maintain customer and channel sales forecasts in the demand estimator for financial (net and gross revenue) forecasts and production targets.

Whether it’s a one-time purchase or recurring demand, the tool provides flexibility and user-friendly features to help you balance production to meet demand.

Standard Reports

In addition to configurable routine reports delivered straight to your inbox related to inventory, purchasing, and consumption, extensive in-app reports provide filter, sort, and export capabilities for off-line reporting in tools such as spreadsheets or Tableau.

Custom Reporting

Aligni makes it easy to export data from its item master database for use in other applications. This can be done through a comprehensive GraphQL API or via CSV export.

Small and mid-sized production operations

Aligni provides an easy-to-use platform to track parts, assemblies, and production. Aligni helps with planning, forecasting, and vendor communication, making it flexible for businesses of all sizes. Support and improve efficiency for small and mid-sized enterprise operations with Aligni.

Discrete manufacturing

Aligni provides a user-friendly platform tailored for tracking parts and assemblies. The inclusion of tools like the Demand Estimator and Configuration Management ensures effective planning, precise forecasting, and stringent quality control in the manufacturing process.

High-mix, Low-volume Production

High-mix, low-volume operations often stress their MRP software in challenging ways. A diverse product mix implies a larger number of parts in the item master, more supply chain complexity, and a lot of products for engineers and buyer/planners to track.

Because batches may occur less often, your team can lean into Aligni’s change management features to make sure BOM changes are well-documented and shared among the team. Easy BOM revisioning and build deviations support a high pace of change and supply variations.

By maintaining customer sales projections in the demand estimator and managing safety stock adeptly, your production team can avoid expensive delays or embarrassing out-of-stock situations, especially when there are so many products to manage.

Smooth coordination between production and buyer/planners is facilitated with the highly-configurable and easy-to-use material shortage report and production calendar so they can focus on what’s next without losing focus.

High part count product builds

Aligni ensures efficient planning and organization, making it an ideal solution for intricate product builds with a high part count. Aligni’s adaptability and comprehensive features make it a valuable asset in simplifying complex production processes.

Highly-specified component builds

In addition to standard off the shelf components, Aligni offers support for more customized builds. Manufacturers can input their CAD drawings and specify parts in house as well as in communication to vendors.

Electronics manufacturing

Aligni was built for electronics manufacturers in mind. With best practices woven into the DNA, features focused on BOM, inventory, supply, and parts management make for the ideal fit for the PLM and MRP needs of electronic manufacturers.

Contract manufacturing

Assemblies and parts can be shared with contract manufacturers by offering them access to your specific documents and parts. With access to parts, drawings, BOMs and what is needed to successfully build your part with a third part, Aligni is a single source of truth.