Manufacturing and Job Shop

What Does a Manufacturing ERP Need to Have?

Written by Nancy Phillippi | May 29, 2019 5:00:00 AM

 

People often compare ERP implementations to heart surgeries—if the doctor was to complete a surgery while the patient was awake and at work. When you move to upgrade your ERP, you are letting a partner see the intimate details of your business, make a necessary change and get up and running. The change can vastly improve your business, but it’s important to know that no matter how beneficial, there is always some risk involved—so it pays to choose wisely.

Five Focus Areas for Your Manufacturing ERP

The path to selecting Manufacturing-focused ERP for your business is often a long and winding road. While nearly every product may look and feel the same to you, differences are subtle. However, spread out over the course of five to eight years, these subtle differences add up and could ultimately cost you thousands of hours in lost productivity or hundreds of thousands of dollars when you find out an integration doesn’t work as expected and you have to pay for custom code.

In the Manufacturing Management System Checklist, a free guide from our friends at Acumatica, the authors offer an easy comparison between software platforms, spread across the following five categories:

  • Productivity: What can the product do to make you and your staff more productive?
  • Functionality: What features and functions does the product have that actually perform the daily accounting and business management functions?
  • Technology: Does the product leverage technology for usability, customizability, and maintainability?
  • Value: How does the product maximize features and functions vs. cost for the usable lifetime of the product?
  • Risk: How does the product minimize risk and facilitate security (both network and financial security)?

Free Guide: Manufacturing Management System Checklist

If you want to make an educated decision on your next steps to selecting ERP for your manufacturing firm, this free guide can show you the way.

“Selecting an ERP manufacturing management and accounting system to run your business is a decision that will affect your company for many years. Many products offer the same or similar features, and it can be confusing to sort out what’s important and what’s not. This tool can help.”

With the Manufacturing Management System Checklist, you can:

  • Discover nine ways your new system can increase productivity.
  • Focus on the 13 key pieces of manufacturing functionality.
  • Find out why “true cloud” technology and responsive design matter.
  • Avoid common pitfalls of software customizations and upgrades.
  • Learn 10 ways to reduce risk as you choose a new system.