Looking at incorporating this software into our plant.

I don't have any experience with 7i Datastream. However, having been in the Metrology world for so long, my curiosity got the best of me.

My only thoughts are that it appears to be an asset management package as opposed to a dedicated calibration management package (I admit I am not at all versed in the package - just my immediate impression).

Depending on what your application requirements are, there are numerous packages out there (could be a listing in one of the threads on this site - one of the other moderators who recalls could perhaps post the thread if they know of it??). Some packages are very powerful (such as SAP), but are not specifically designed for the detailed needs of calibration labs.

A non-commercial web page that lists many of the available packages is: http://www.fasor.com/iso25/ (it is a very long page; you'll need to scroll to near the bottom). It lists many packages. Being careful not to endorse any specific package, many of them are pretty good.

Interesting.

I work for a lean manf. and we outsource our calibration work to 4 different suppliers, but may expand to an internal laboratory to handle the grunt of our work which is DMM's and Hand Tools.

What I ned is more along the lines of an asset managment software that has the capability to track all of the metrics that most in-house calibration facilities would be concerned with.

Date due, date cald, last date due, owner, trending OOT info, etc etc etc.

Because this is a non-commercial forum, I'll avoid "naming names" (i.e.: recommending a specific database -- which, by the way, I have no vested interest in any of them).

Since you want basic calibration-related information, depending on cost, you might want to consider some of the available database packages listed on that site. My guess is that a more powerful inventory management database may require significant configuration work. One of the less elaborate "Calibration Recall" databases may be already configured for what you want (or close to it). If you send me a private message, I can give you some more detailed feedback about some of the recall databases I have had experience with. There are two or three I think lean a little toward the less elaborate direction.

My guess is one of them could be gotten for a few thousand dollars (compared with some of the more complex which could cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars to purchase/configure.

Sending PM -

Our attraction to the Datastream 7i (I have no problem mentioning names because everything is opinion [e.g. Hondas are better then Kawasakis because I like this aspect]) is that we can incorporate it into our manf and inspection processes to include QC. So if a cal vendor informs me an item is OOT I can in minutes trace the Serial numbers of final product that was affected by this.