Manufacturing Schedule

Situation Background: I have 5 years experience as a Junior project controls tech in the industrial construction field. I was responsible for alot of data entry, schedule maintenance, cost analysis, estimating and so forth. Now I have decided to stop traveling and have taken the position as scheduler for a manufacturing plant at home. We build Heat Exchangers. Currently they use a system on the AS400 called Progress400 or DCD.

Problem: This system is way out of date. I wasn’t aware of the situation untill after hire and they knew my background was in MS Project or Suretrak. However, I want to keep this job so I was wondering if any of you have ever worked with any older progressing programs such as DCD. It deals in all flat text file and makes reporting nearly impossible on a visually pleasing level. I also intend to bring these guys into the 21st century, but am unsure which software would work best on a manufacturing level. There are alot of redundancies in the process of building an exchanger and the only thing that varies between the types are thicknesses of baffles, nozzle orientations etc. So any recommendations on which software would work best are welcome. Please don’t flame me if you find this post lacking info to help you help me. If I left something out, just politely request it from me and I will deliver if you have the time to help.

Thanks in Advance,
Brandon Shaw