Work preparation and planning on the shop floor of a manufacturing company

ERP for manufacturing

In manufacturing the production model decides everything: to stock, to order or to project. That distinction rules out more systems than any feature list, and it shifts as you grow.

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. They rarely arrive together, but they point the same way: more has to be written down, and sooner.

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

Skilled people are scarce, and the knowledge of the oldest generation leaves faster than it gets handed over. 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

Customers in food, medical and automotive have long asked for traceability down to the batch. That demand travels down the chain: supply a customer who carries the obligation and you inherit it.

Retrofitting batch and serial registration costs more than taking it into the choice.

Chain reporting becomes a question about your system

European reporting obligations on sustainability and product information are being phased in and pass through to suppliers. The data they need, such as origin and material use, is rarely complete in the 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

More and more manufacturers ship standard products with customer-specific variants. That calls for costing up front and post-calculation afterwards, while many systems were built for one or the other.

This is exactly where standard configuration runs out and custom work begins.

Which ERP systems run in manufacturing?

These are the systems you meet most often in Dutch manufacturing. They were built for different production models, and that explains most of what later goes smoothly or badly.

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. We hold no partnership with vendors, so we have no stake in which name you choose.

Where does it pinch at each stage of growth?

A system does not quietly grow with you. It pinches at predictable moments, and at a different point each time. Knowing which stage is coming leads to a different choice than looking only at today.

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 was never written down.
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.

Most companies choose a system for the stage they are leaving, not for the stage that is coming.

That is understandable: today’s constraints are visible and the ones after next are not. Yet that next stage is precisely why a system pinches again within a few years. 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 rules out more candidates than any feature list.

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.

Nearly every ERP system for manufacturing contains MRP. 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.

Growth is rarely the direct trigger. More often it is a change in the order flow, such as customer-specific work arriving, that suddenly leaves the system in the wrong shape.

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. Without an owner it becomes an outage waiting for its moment.

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.

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