ERP for manufacturing: end-to-end solution overview
September 19, 2023
Manufacturing ERP supports manufacturing companies in managing critical business aspects, from production to payroll, by aggregating and visualizing all the information required to run business operations, identify inefficiencies, and spot optimization opportunities.
With over 25 years in enterprise software engineering, Itransition helps manufacturing companies automate manual processes and streamline digital transformation with a full range of ERP services.
About Itransition
10+ years in ERP services
50+ completed projects of different scales across industries
Hands-on expertise in delivering out-of-the-box, custom, and hybrid ERP solutions
An Odoo Silver Partner
A NetSuite Solution Provider
Client spotlight
21%
sales increase
Software suite for a kitchen manufacturer
Itransition helped the customer drive digital transformation by delivering software solutions to transform their back-office workflows and pioneer VR-based customer engagement.
Smooth workflows
Cut TCO costs
ERP system maintenance for LISI Aerospace
Itransition’s team complemented the core ERP solution with custom bolt-on modules to reconcile functionality gaps and reduce system support costs.
Looking for a trustworthy ERP technology partner?
When you need ERP for manufacturing
With a tailored enterprise resource planning solution, Itransition helps you address multiple concerns, including:
- Time-consuming management and control of core business processes (inventory, production schedules, procurement) via disjoint software apps.
- Multiple inefficiencies and issues, rooting from the lack of visibility into manufacturing operations and business performance.
- Ineffective business decisions and departments operating in silos as a result of data inconsistency and communication bottlenecks.
- Unproductiveness of your current software applications due to the lack of functionality to support existing business processes, absence of vendor support, knowledge gap, or poor user experience.
- Inability to spot and act on new revenue opportunities due to manual workflows and lack of time.
- Failure to meet regulatory requirements due to slow and error-prone manual data entry and aggregation.
Generic ERP vs manufacturing ERP
When choosing the best ERP fit for your company, you should decide whether to go for a generic business management ERP platform (sometimes referred to as a tier-one ERP system) or choose an ERP for manufacturing (tier-two ERP software). The main differences between the two are as follows:
Purpose
Addresses specific needs of process and discrete manufacturing companies.
Implementation
Requires help from a software vendor or a partner
Licensing fee
Higher
Customization
Pricey and limited
Functional modules
All modules that are typical of generic solution plus the ones covering the needs of manufacturing business:
- Production planning and management
- Quality management
- Recipe and formula management
- Inventory and supply chain management
- Procurement management
- Order management
Best for
Manufacturing companies with particular business needs that otherwise would require a lot of customization with generic ERP systems
Considerations
Vendor lock-ins
Purpose
Encompasses basic functionality/capabilities required by companies from different industries.
Implementation
Handled by external professionals or in-house IT department
Licensing fee
Lower
Customization
Possible but pricey
Functional modules
One-size-fits-all modules:
- Customer relationship management
- Sales management
- Marketing automation
- Purchasing management
- Accounting and financial management
- Inventory/warehouse management
- HR management
- Project management
- Demand planning and forecasting
Best for
Manufacturing industry companies that have standardized processes, or their manufacture-specific workflows are covered with standalone solutions.
Considerations
Customization and adds-on can be too pricey
Key manufacturing ERP features
Production planning
Generating achievable production plans and schedules to fulfill sales orders by tracking and maintaining optimal stock levels and balancing demand, capacity, and constraints.
- Bill of materials
- Production planning and forecasting
- Operational capacity planning
- Finite and rough cut capacity planning
- Make-to-order and make-to-stock planning
- Master production scheduling
- Procurement scheduling
- Production process scheduling
- Purchase, assembly, and manufacturing orders creation
- Job costing
- Inventory control and shop floor control
- Demand forecasting
- What-if production scenarios, interactive scheduling
Production management
Streamlining production process tracking, execution, and control by automating the management of multiple variables, such as raw materials, equipment, workforce, and workflows, to optimize resources, extract more profit, and reduce direct and indirect costs.
- Single-level and multi-level bill of materials
- Routing
- Primary and alternative bill of materials/routings
- Bill of materials and routing revision control
- Product engineering
- Engineering change request management
- Work in progress tracking
- Work order prioritization
- Labor management
- Tools and equipment tracking
- Shop floor data collection
- Real-time production dashboards
Inventory management
Achieving real-time inventory visibility and automatic coordination of inventory-related activities to generate effective replenishment plans, increase inventory turns, decrease inventory carrying costs, reduce overhead and cycle time.
- Tracking of materials, parts, work in process and finished goods
- Tracking of inventory location, temperature, production date, and stock levels
- Inventory counting and physical stock verification
- Inventory planning
- Automated replenishment alerts
- Manage product inventory shelf life
- Track expiration and identify non-conforming inventory
- Return material authorization
- Warehouse management
- Bin management
- Inventory stock costing
Compliance & quality management
Meeting internal quality and compliance needs and avoiding costly fines by tracking raw ingredients, identifying quality issues, and recalling defective or unsafe products to ensure high-quality products for the customers.
- Automated quality checks of raw materials, inventory, labor, and processes
- Visual check, picture check, measurement check
- Tracking non-conformances
- Tracking the disposal of regulated ingredients
- Complete audit trail, audit management
- Notifications and alerting
- Vendor/supplier performance evaluation
- Traceability and recall reporting
- Safety data sheet (SDS) and certificate of analysis (COA) creation
- Analytics and reporting (quality issues, material costs, supplier and distributor performance, checklists, inspection plans)
Recipe/formula management
Reducing product change time while enforcing product quality and repeatability to enhance customer experience and meet regulatory requirements.
- Recipe calculation
- Measurement scaling
- Formula/recipe download and execution
- Recipe change management
- Smart variant design
- Recipe execution history record
- Version tracking
Supply chain management
Gaining end-to-end supply chain visibility and leverage collaborative communication to optimize supply chain planning, management, and fulfillment.
- Order fulfillment tracking across the supply chain (raw materials sourcing, production, storage, shipment)
- Alerts and notifications (inventory overstock/drop-down, shipment delays, freight damage/loss)
- Logistics management
- Supplier management
- Supply chain analysis (supplier performance, carrier performance, inventory)
- Multisite, multi-logistics inventory planning
- Supply chain risk management
Procurement management
Automating purchase order management for streamlined purchase planning and advanced spend monitoring.
- Supplier onboarding and evaluation
- Purchase requisition
- Purchase order creation, approval, submission, monitoring, reconciliation
- Request for quote, quote comparison
- Purchase spend monitoring and budgeting
- Invoice сlearing and payment
- Purchase receipt and inspection
Order management
Helping efficiently execute different order fulfillment scenarios to reduce operating costs and enhance customer experience.
- Multichannel order capture and processing
- Work order scheduling (based on priority, processing time, and inventory available)
- Work order progress monitoring
- Production schedule upgrades and changes
- Order shipment management
- Tracking order shipment status in real-time
- Return order management (approval, routing, tracking)
Need custom ERP software tailored for your business?
Manufacturing ERP solutions for your sector
The manufacturing industry encompasses a wide range of categories. Recognizing the need for tailored manufacturing ERP systems, Itransition architectures and delivers custom ERP modules and solutions tailored to the specifics of your business.
Food & beverages
Clothing & footwear
Textile
Wood & paper products
Industrial machinery & equipment
Aerospace & defense
Rubber & plastics
Electronics & high tech
Furniture & fixtures
Steel
Chemicals
Cosmetics
Pharma- ceuticals
Automotive
Manufacturing ERP: an adoption guide
Key integrations
Integrations extend the ERP functionality, increase collaboration between different teams, eliminate duplicate data entry, and build cross-functional efficiency. We set up custom integration solutions or use ready-to-use connectors to integrate the ERP software with your current technology environment, including:
Manufacturing execution system
Enterprise asset management
Computerized maintenance management system
Finance and accounting software
Customer relationship management software
BI and analytics
Key integrations
Manufacturing execution system
Integrating manufacturing floor data with other information, such as customer demand or actual inventory levels, helps manufacturers be more responsive to customer demand, make instant production adjustments, and facilitate just-in-time deliveries.
Enterprise asset management
Tracking and measuring asset performance helps plan procurement and replacement activities, accurately allocate physical assets to production activities, and devise effective asset management strategies for overall equipment.
Computerized maintenance management system
Streamlining equipment maintenance activities, generating accurate equipment maintenance schedules, and calculating overall equipment effectiveness could maximize equipment lifespan and manufacturing productivity.
Finance & accounting software
Consolidating accurate financial and operational data helps better manage daily finances, make data-driven decisions, track job costs, and increase the accuracy of financial forecasts.
Customer relationship management software
CRM integration adds visibility to material, production, and shipping costs and allows quick and accurate estimations. It automatically converts customer requests into work orders, tracks them, and communicates their statuses.
BI & analytics
Business intelligence modules facilitate reporting and analytics capabilities company-wide, querying multidimensional data across the department for real-time decisions, alerts, and notifications.
Deployment model
Based on size, functionality, and company needs, manufacturing software is deployed in the cloud, on local servers, or in a hybrid environment. Itransition helps you decide on the optimal ERP deployment approach to ensure proper performance and reduce the cost of ownership.
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Model
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
The ERP system is deployed in the cloud with users accessing the application via the Internet.
The ERP software system is installed in the company’s data center and is managed by in-house experts.
Using legacy ERP solutions for mission-critical workloads while adding cloud software to support some business units or regions.
Implementation & maintenance
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Vendor manages quick implementation, maintenance, and upgrades
Slow implementation as the infrastructure has to be purchased and installed beforehand. In-house IT team manage upgrades and maintenance
Vendor and in-house IT team manage quick implementation, upgrades and maintenance
Scalability
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Highly scalable, done by license purchase/upgrade
Scalability is limited with in-house hardware resources and may be time- and resource-consuming
Adding new capabilities is instantaneous. Upscaling and downscaling of existing capabilities are bound to in-house hardware resources
Customization
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Possibility to choose the required capabilities and add-ons when needed, limited customization
Bought as a packaged suite, higher customization flexibility
Highly customizable
Security
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Infrastructure and data security is under the responsibility of an ERP provider
Depends on the expertise of the in-house IT team
Under the responsibility of both vendor and in-house IT team
Cost & pricing flexibility
Cloud-based ERP
On-premises ERP
Hybrid ERP
Low upfront costs, significant pricing flexibility
Requires significant capital investments, low pricing flexibility
Requires low upfront investments and has significant pricing flexibility
Mobile support
To help manufacturers extend ERP systems beyond the desktop to manage key business processes on the go, Itransition delivers mobile ERP solutions to enable users to input, access, and report critical real-time data anywhere from any device. We facilitate:
- Data collection (shop floor, dock floor, warehouse)
- Real-time visibility (inventory, production schedules, orders)
- KPIs and executive dashboards with specific metrics
- Notifications, triggers, and alerts
Total cost of ownership
The total cost of ownership of manufacturing ERP solutions depends on multiple factors:
- Deployment mode (cloud, on-premises, hybrid)
- Software licensing (depends on the deployment mode, functionality, number of users, and customization capabilities)
- Hardware-related costs (for on-premises and hybrid solutions)
- Implementation team
- Data management activities
- Quality assurance procedures
- On-going maintenance
- Product upgrade
- User training
Looking for ERP consultancy to drive your manufacturing business?
Best manufacturing ERP platforms
Here, we shortlist in alphabetical order the best ERP software platforms for small businesses, mid-sized manufacturers and enterprises seeking industry-specific functionality.
Build a comprehensive ERP solution with Itransition
ERP consulting
We help manufacturing companies choose the optimal tech stack for their ERP project and introduce ERP solutions within the scope of their time and budget requriements.
ERP implementation
We implement platform-based ERP and build custom ERP solutions by following a step-by-step process that includes business needs analysis, full-scale solution deployment, and after-launch support.
Manufacturing ERP implementation roadmap
1
Business analysis
Discovery of business processes
Infrastructure analysis
Requirements definition
ERP solution scoping
2
Design
ERP conceptualization
Architecture design
Integration scope definition
Tech stack selection
3
Project planning
Project timeframes and key steps outline
Project deliverables definition
Resource planning
Change management assessment and planning
Budget planning
4
Development/Customization
ERP software configuration
ERP software customization
Custom ERP development
Platform integration
5
Quality assurance
Functional testing
Performance testing
Usability testing
Compatibility testing
6
Deployment
ERP software deployment to production
Data migration
End-user training
Admin training
7
After-launch support
Platform infrastructure and users support
Performance issues management
Data flows fine-tuning
Technology upgrades on request
Benefits of using ERP systems for manufacturing
Increased visibility into business processes
Accurate and timely data on core business processes accumulated in a central database allows all authorized parties to access and collaborate efficiently.
Eliminated communication bottlenecks
Open communication channels, data transparency, and role-based homepages break down communication barriers. It helps to eliminate redundant work, address inefficiencies, and foster cross-functional collaboration.
Streamlined data analysis
Structured company-wide data reporting and analytics capabilities enable effective data-driven decision-making.
Risk mitigation
A comprehensive overview of all business processes helps detect loopholes, predict and proactively address risks and ensure full compliance with regulatory requirements.
Maximized resource & equipment utilization
Managing your product cycle with automated production scheduling and IoT-enabled real-time visibility into available resources and inventory reduces equipment idle time.
Lean manufacturing
Monitoring current and upcoming production orders, automated inventory tracking and simplified purchase orders help ensure timely fulfillment of customer orders and reduce production cycles.
Case study
Odoo ERP system implementation
Discover how Itransition customized an Odoo ERP system to help the customer automate their business processes and improve service quality.
Case study
A furniture manufacturing software suite
Read the story behind Itransition’s 5-year collaboration with a leading UK furniture manufacturer on web, mobile and VR solutions.
Case study
ERP system maintenance for LISI Aerospace
Learn how Itransition delivered ERP system maintenance for LISI Aerospace to enhance productivity and reduce support costs.
Case study
Industrial risk management software support
Learn how Itransition’s dedicated team delivered risk management software support for a Dutch provider with 5K+ enterprise clients globally.