Choosing ERP for manufacturing

In manufacturing, start from your production model: to stock, to order or to project. Test which production models a system supports and include your expected growth stage in the assessment. On this page you read what is happening in the sector, what you select an ERP system for manufacturing on and what to watch per growth stage. How the whole process runs, you read in the steps of an ERP selection.

What is happening in the sector

Which systems run there

What pinches at each stage

What is happening in manufacturing?

Four developments currently decide what a manufacturer needs from its system. Check which of them has to be recorded in your system.

The labour market forces choices that used to be able to wait

Check which knowledge now lives only in the heads of your skilled people, and how you record it. Work that used to live in people’s heads now has to live in the system: work instructions, costing norms, machine settings.

A system that only records what already happened is no help there.

Traceability moves from a demand to a condition

If you supply customers in food, medical or automotive, check whether they ask for traceability down to the batch. That demand travels down the chain: supply a customer who carries the obligation and you inherit it.

So take batch and serial registration into the choice, rather than building it in afterwards.

Chain reporting becomes a question about your system

Check which European reporting obligations on sustainability and product information apply to you or your customers. Also test whether the data they need, such as origin and material use, is complete in your current system.

Your system has to be able to carry that data, even if you do not report it yet.

The line between series and project is blurring

If you ship standard products with customer-specific variants, test whether a system supports both costing up front and post-calculation afterwards, or was built for one of the two.

Test exactly here where the standard configuration stops and custom work begins.

What do you select an ERP system for manufacturing on?

Test candidates on your own production processes, not on a feature list. Ask every candidate the same question for each criterion, in the RFI or in a demonstration on your own order.

Production model. Does the system fit how you produce: to stock, to order, to project or a mix? Ask: "Which production model does this system assume, and what has to be adapted for the other models we run alongside it?"
Bills of materials and operations. Can the system record your product structure and routing as they really are? Ask: "How do you record a multi-level bill of materials with operations, and what happens when a component changes during the order?"
Planning and capacity. Does the system plan on available machines and people, or only on material? Ask: "How does this system schedule a rush order when capacity is already full, and who sees which orders shift as a result?"
Post-calculation. Do the actual costs come back to the order? Ask: "How do hours spent, material used and scrap come back to the order, and how do you compare them with the pre-calculation?"
Traceability and quality. Can you trace what is in a delivered product? Ask: "Show how you search back from a delivered product to the batch or serial number of the material, and how a rejection is recorded."

Record in a business requirements scan how much weight each of these criteria carries for you.

Which ERP systems run in manufacturing?

For each system below, first test whether it fits your production model.

What it was built for and what to watch

System	What it was built for	What to watch
Isah	Project-based and customer-specific production, with costing and engineering close to the order.	Strong where every order differs. On high-volume series with little variation you leave part of its strength unused.
Ridder IQ	Mid-market Dutch manufacturers, with work preparation and planning in one whole.	Built for the Dutch market. With sites abroad, check the language and accounting side first.
Infor	Manufacturing with a pronounced sector model, including more complex assembly.	The sector model is the gain. The moment you depart from it, that gain is exactly what disappears.
Dynamics 365 F&SCM	Larger and international manufacturing organisations with several sites and currencies.	Broad and powerful, but the configuration is a project in itself. Do not underestimate the administration.
SAP S/4HANA	Groups and organisations working in an international chain where SAP is the standard.	The choice is often set by the chain rather than by your own need. Check whether that is the case here.

Not an exhaustive list and not a recommendation. Which of these systems fits depends on your production model, not on our preference.

Where does it pinch at each stage of growth?

A system does not grow with you by itself. At each stage of growth it often pinches at a different point. So take the stage that is coming into your choice, not only the current one.

Per stage of growth

Employees	What happens	Where it then pinches
Up to about 50	One site, a manageable order flow. Accounting in a package, planning in a spreadsheet, knowledge with a few people.	Nothing, until the planner is off sick for a week. Then it shows how much is not written down anywhere.
50 to 150	Order volume grows, more items and more suppliers arrive. The first ERP system comes in.	Stock and planning drift apart. What the system says and what sits in the warehouse differ too often.
150 to 500	Customer-specific work appears alongside the standard series. Several shifts, sometimes a second site.	Costing and post-calculation are missing or sit outside the system. Nobody knows which order made money.
Above 500	Several sites, often across borders, sometimes with a second system inherited through an acquisition.	Consolidation and harmonisation. Two sites call the same item something different, and that works through into the accounts.

Do not choose a system only for the stage you are in now.

That is understandable: today’s constraints are visible and the ones after next are not. Also test whether a system fits the stage that is coming. Ask every candidate what happens when order volume doubles or a second site is added.

Four questions that test the next stage

Put them to every candidate, in this order. If the answer to the first stays vague, the other three tell you little.

What happens in this system if our order volume doubles without the team growing?
How does this system record a customer-specific variant alongside our standard series?
What does it take to bring a second site on, and who does that work?
Where do I see, once an order is finished, what it actually cost?

Frequently asked questions

Which ERP system suits a manufacturing company?

That depends on your production model. Customer-specific work turns on costing and engineering; series production turns on planning and stock. Those two call for different systems.

So do not start from a list of names, but from the question of whether you produce to stock, to order or to project. That distinction already rules out part of the candidates.

What is the difference between ERP and MRP?

MRP calculates what to buy and make, and when, based on demand. ERP is the wider system that calculation sits inside, together with purchasing, sales, stock and finance.

Ask every candidate how MRP is set up. The question is not whether it is there, but whether its rules match how you actually plan.

Does a manufacturer need a sector-specific system?

Only if your process follows the sector model. Depart from it and you pay for a model you then have to rebuild.

Weigh the size of the partner market too. With a niche system only a handful of firms can implement it, and that limits your room to move.

When is a manufacturer ready for a new ERP system?

When the system no longer follows how you work and you notice it every month in duplicate work, waiting time or figures you cannot trust.

Besides growth, also watch for changes in the order flow, such as customer-specific work arriving. Include this in your requirements, so you can test whether a system fits it.

How do you connect machines to an ERP system?

Through the shop-floor layer: machines report progress and consumption to an intermediate layer, which passes the feedback on to the ERP system.

Judge not whether the link is technically possible, but who maintains it when the machine supplier or the ERP system changes. So assign an owner.

Have a manufacturing choice reviewed

We work with consultants who know manufacturing from the inside, on your side of the table. Because we are platform-independent and hold no vendor ties, we have no stake in which system it becomes.

Want your requirements sharp first? Plan a conversation about a requirements scan.

Book a consultation All ERP systems

Where we help

Getting your production model sharp before you go to market
Demonstrations on your own order and your own exceptions
Testing whether the system can carry the next stage of growth

We have guided projects in this sector at companies including DM Vacuum Systems and Profextru.