Shotgun* provides off the shelf production tracking that is highly configurable, has a basic Gantt chart view and allows time logging against tasks. I believe they have a hosted version for smaller setups, but in your case it may still be overkill.

Most production tracking still seems to revolve around Excel spreadsheets or even Filemaker projects. With Excel you can of course set up formulas to provide a Gantt chart view etc, but it is always going to be slightly clunky compared to dedicated project management software.

If you are familiar with traditional project management then Microsoft Project still stands up there as a top product.

Less specific to the industry there are also reputable online project management companies such as Basecamp or Huddle.

On the software development side there has been a move towards more Agile methods of planning and management that might prove useful even to non-rnd departments.

My main advice would be to try and get the process down in a simple form, if you haven't already, before looking at supporting software. Sometimes pen and paper can still be the most efficient and effective.

• Disclaimer - I used to work for them ;-)

Shotgun and Tactic are pretty popular and frequently used in the vfx/cg industry. Since you are a relatively small studio, you could demo these applications first to see if they fit your needs.

Honestly speaking, if you have one hell of a production manager who's really good with Excel (Excel artist, if you may), you can set up a whole lot of automated charts and graphs and sheets and what not. But obviously, there won't be any integration with the actual 3d applications you use to create your content.

As has already been suggested, its best to put your whole workflow on to a paper or whiteboard and start spec-ing them out at a detailed level. Most of this is pure logic in any case (with some flexibility for special cases).