I have researched several software packages before my company finally settled on the package we are currently using. If you are doing research for QMS Software, a good starting point may be ASQ's Quality Progress magazine. They occasionally do a software listing with various companies you can contact. I don't want to use this as a forum to endorse the software package we are using, but if you wish? I will send you a private message with further details on some of the better software vendors we evaluated (there were three decent QMS packages and several other - less attractive - QMS packages), what we considered the good points / bad points, and how we arrived at the decision to go with the software we purchased?
As for a ball-park figure, this will depend on several factors... First, how many concurrent users will you have at your organization? We have about 350 people at my organization and found that we could get by with a 10 concurrent user site license. Also, do you plan to have one site with the licensed software or multiple locations? Here's an idea of what you may be looking at as for the overall cost (these figures have been rounded somewhat from our actual costs for the software we purchased - PS: we got the most comprehensive version with ALL the frills = in other words, this is one of the more expensive versions):
$ 25,000 software for 10 concurrent users,
$ 850 +/- per site license (when you are using your software at multiple locations)
$ 4,000 +/- standard yearly maintenance contract (which includes software upgrades, payable once a year, optional, but recommended)
$ 1,500 +/- Set-up and configuration
$ 5,000 +/- For initial on-site Training (3 days worth, recommended for the power-users, quality coordinators, document owners)
Other costs can be added or subtracted from your overall costs based on your organizational needs / size. The additional costs may be related to the hiring of Temp. help to assist you in transitioning your paper-based document control system to an electronic format? Travel expenses? Additional specialized training for your software administrator(s)? Additional on-site training? and in our case, an additional maintenance cost which makes our software vendor responsible for our upgrades and most technical problem resolutions.
The estimates above were based on the software and version we purchased for our facility. The software company we purchased the QMS Software from had several versions of their QMS Software available... we purchased the most comprehensive version which helps with compliance to ISO-9001/ISO-16949 and ISO-14001. Ours is a Lotus Notes based environment, but in my research, I found many other versions available.
Hope that helps you with an estimate? Other versions of the software may be significantly less expensive than the version we purchased. If you are only looking for a Document Control system, with basic Corrective Action and Internal Assessment features, you may be looking at an overall cost much lower than the estimate I provided above. In my researches, I found prices which ranged from about $1,000 to $30,000...
PS: We purchased our current software back in mid 2000. The first step after that decision was to train our site administrators (my boss and myself). Installation and training of the quality coordinators / document owners soon followed. The hard part (we found) was transitioning the many paper documents into the electronic system. When you are ready to go that route, you should take that as an opportinity to clean up those older documents and take out the trash (documents which add no value, but people are affraid to obsolete).
