ERP for aerospace: features, key integrations, benefits & services
September 5, 2023
Aerospace ERP is a specialized enterprise resource planning system that aircraft companies use to consolidate, store, manage, and interpret data from their business processes to effectively manage production, supply chain, and after-sales operations.
With 25-years of experience in enterprise software engineering, Itransition delivers ERP solutions to help aerospace companies maintain a high quality of products and services, increase production capacity while minimizing waste, and quickly respond to market disruptions, meeting the stringent requirements of this highly regulated industry.
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About Itransition
10+ years of experience in ERP services
50+ completed projects of different scales across various 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
Smooth workflow
reduced TCO costs
ERP system maintenance for LISI Aerospace
Our team optimized the legacy bolt-on modules and facilitated their integration with the ERP system and other enterprise applications to reconcile functionality gaps and optimize system support costs.
2x faster
work order management
ERP system for a repair and maintenance service company
Our team implemented an Odoo-based ERP solution to help the customer accelerate procurement and work order management as well as reduce manual operations by 90%.
Common features of aerospace ERP software
The functionality of a specific aerospace ERP solution should be adjusted to the strategic and operational objectives of a company operating in the aerospace sector. Common ERP modules we develop for aerospace include:
Simplifying procurement for aerospace companies with multiple purchasing categories, wide supplier networks, and complex procurement processes as well as enhancing budgeting and financial planning.
- Supplier relationship management: supplier selection, bidding, assessment, and contract management
- Purchase requisitions and purchase order management
- Catalog management
- Spend monitoring (spend by period/product/location, spend vs budget)
- Procurement planning and budgeting
Customer order processing
Enhancing customer experience due to quick fulfillment of customer orders and reduced quote-to-cash cycle times.
- Automated order creation (including complex orders with different product types)
- Centralized order routing for optimal divisions, warehouses, and sites
- Сustomer order estimations with configurable pricing
- Return management
- Order and sales reporting (ongoing orders, pending orders, sales by products/location/channel)
Production planning
Eliminating over- or under-production by connecting material availability, production capacity, and work orders and generating achievable production plans and schedules for aerospace and defense manufacturing companies.
- Simple and multi-level bill of materials creation and maintenance
- Routing
- Dynamic production scheduling and capacity planning
- Support of various production modes (make to order, make to stock, engineer to order)
- Detailed cost tracking, automatic standard costs, and variances calculation
- Equipment repair scheduling
Production control
Getting visibility and full control of an aerospace manufacturing process for companies in the aircraft manufacturing industry to reduce the risk of error, shorten production cycle time, and reduce downtime.
- 360-degree/365 shop floor control
- Work order tracking and prioritization
- Dynamic BOMs and routing adjustment
- Engineering change request
- Labor management
Quality control
Incorporating quality process control across the organization to timely identify and eliminate production quality issues and deliver high-quality products to customers.
- Tracking the quality of incoming, in-process, and outbound material/inventory/finished goods
- Material tagging
- Nonconformance management
- Equipment calibrations and inspections
- Quality issues analysis
- Vendor performance evaluation
- Inspection test plans and checklists
Inventory management
Real-time inventory management across multiple locations to minimize inventory transportation and holding costs while eliminating shortages and ensuring timely order fulfillment.
- Tracking of raw materials, finished goods, waste, MRO inventory, reverse inventory
- Lot control and granular serial number tracking
- Inventory cost accounting
- Automated inventory replenishment by location, lot, serial number, or project
- Analytics and reports (ABC category analysis, supply and demand changes analysis)
Project management
Governing and monitoring project progress, enhancing project team productivity, and optimizing and planning project resource usage with end-to-end project visibility.
- Project planning and scheduling
- Project progress monitoring
- Project budgeting and estimations
- Human resource and time management
- Communication and collaboration capabilities
Traceability & compliance
Compliance with industry, government, and customer-specific regulations and end-to-end traceability with complete audit trails. A quick inspection of all goods in case of a mechanical failure, and recalling crafts containing nonconforming components.
- Lot/serial track and trace module
- Automated audit trails
- Graphic traceability trees
- Document management (material certifications, inspection plans, procurement policies)
- Compliance reporting (ITAR, EPA, FAA)
- FCC registration
Customer service
Increasing customer satisfaction with full visibility into customer service cases, related sales orders, requests, invoices, shipments, and returns. Building customer loyalty with improved first-call resolution.
- 360° view of every customer interaction
- Automated return management
- Warranty management
- Customer service contracts management
- Integrated self-service customer portals
Need help with your aerospace ERP project?
Core integrations for aerospace ERP software
Itransition uses custom and third-party integration solutions to enable the uninterrupted information flow between the ERP platform and other systems comprising the IT ecosystem of the company. The common systems for integrations are:
Core integrations
MES
CMMS
Finance &
accounting software
CRM
EDI
BI software
MES
- Integrated production data with customer demand and inventory data
- Optimized inventory management and just-in-time delivery
- Instant production adjustments in response to changes in demand
- Accurate demand forecasting
CMMS
- Condition-based equipment maintenance
- Automated production and repair operations scheduling
- Accurate allocation of physical assets to production activities based on real-time equipment data
- Streamlined procurement and spare parts management
Finance & accounting software
- Full visibility of sales orders, payments, invoices, and subscription billing
- Automated cash-matching and payment management
- Real-time monitoring of cash flows, profitability and overall financial health of a company
- Automated generation of budgets and financial plans
CRM
- A 360°customer view (requests for quotes, open orders, invoices, accounts receivables, support cases)
- Accelerated quote generation and accurate estimation of delivery dates
- Improved invoice accuracy and cash flow
- Streamlined quote-to-cash process
EDI
- Unified format of communication with suppliers, customers, and partners
- Streamlined exchange of order statuses, invoices, and shipping details
- Getting instant automatic updates at the customer’s or supplier’s end
- One-click access to production information for partners and customers
BI software
- Customized KPI dashboards for any role in the organization
- Out-of-the-box report templates or drag-and-drop capabilities
- Automated alerts and notifications on important milestones
ERP software value for the aerospace industry
A well-set-up uninterrupted data flow, data integrity, timeliness, and accuracy resulting from ERP integration help aerospace companies view their core business processes.
Maximized operational efficiency
ERP ensures the automation of tedious work streams – inventory management, maintenance, repair, quality control, and invoice generation. Thus, it helps to minimize the risk of errors and save qualified specialists' time for high-priority and revenue-generating activities.
Sustainable aircraft manufacturing
ERP systems support aerospace manufacturing sustainability by enabling lean manufacturing, supply chain resilience, and timely management of demand fluctuations. It also helps to cut production costs, minimize material and production scrap, and avoid excess and obsolete inventories while ensuring on-time delivery to customers.
Simplified risk management & compliance
ERP brings standardized business processes and workflows, accurate financial reporting and forecasting capabilities. This enables aerospace companies to adhere to local, federal, and global environmental regulatory compliance requirements and minimize the risk of costly fines and penalties.
Accurate & efficient communication
ERP software stores corporate data in one central location and makes it accessible to authorized personnel. This helps companies operating in the aerospace and defense industry to streamline business workflows, eliminate outdated or inconsistent data, and automate error-prone manual data management tasks.
Popular off-the-shelf ERP software for aerospace
Key features
- Fleet management
- Inventory management
- Invoicing
- Purchase management
- Sales management
- Manufacturing management
- Production quality management
- Warehouse management
- Repairs management
- Human resources management
- Project planning and controlling
- Procurement management
- Accounting and finance
- CRM and estimation
Best for
- Small organizations
- Mid-sized organizations
Product limitations
- Requires solid expertise to scale
Product differentiator
- Flexible deployment options (cloud and on-premises)
Key features
- Finance management and accounting
- Service and marketing automation
- Human resource management
- Billing
- Asset management
- CRM
- Sales order management
- Opportunity management
- Planning and budgeting
- Revenue recognition
- Financial analytics
- Reporting
Best for
- Companies of all sizes
Product limitations
- Price hikes in the long run
Product differentiator
- A cloud-native solution supporting standard business processes and workflows
Key features
- Manufacturing and quality management
- Project management
- Supply chain management
- Vendor management
- Billing and costing
- Financial and accounting
- Inventory and order management
- Asset management
- CRM
- Customer service
Best for
- Small organizations
- Mid-sized organizations
Product limitations
- Requires sufficient IT expertise to setup and scale
- High costs in the long run
Product differentiator
- Strong manufacturing focus
- Extensive supply chain management capabilities
Key features
- Project management
- Asset management
- Field service
- Product lifecycle manufacturing
- Support for various manufacturing modes
- Quality control
- Inventory management
- Demand planning and forecasting
- Trade management
Best for
- Small organizations
- Mid-sized organizations
Product limitations
Requires sufficient IT expertise to deploy and scale
Product differentiator
Strong field service module
Key features
- Product lifecycle management
- Quality management
- Project management
- Support for various manufacturing modes
- CAD
- Asset management
- Job management
- Production planning and scheduling
- Mobile field service management
- Maintenance management
- Supply chain management
Best for
- Small organizations
- Mid-sized organizations
Product limitations
Not suitable for diversified workflows and geographies, an emerging reseller network
Product differentiator
- Advanced MES capabilities
- High flexibility
Key features
- Production and project management
- Support for various manufacturing modes
- Scheduling
- Subcontract operations
- Procurement management
- Job costing
- Budgeting and financial management
- Customer relationship management
- Customer service and field service management
- Supply chain management
- Workforce planning and reporting
Best for
- Growing companies
- Large companies
Product limitations
Requires significant customizations or configurations for compliance
Product differentiator
Flexible, adaptable, and easy to integrate due to an open architecture
Key features
- Material requirements planning
- Manufacturing management
- Product configurator
- Financial management
- Project accounting
- Distribution management
- Field service edition
- Customer relationship management
- Advanced planning and scheduling
- Analytics and reporting
Best for
- Small companies
- Mid-sized companies
Product limitations
- A steep learning curve
- Analytics and reporting setup requires significant effort
Product differentiator
- High level of customization
- Ease of use
- Flexible pricing model
Key features
- Project and program management
- Procurement management
- Material requirement planning
- Mixed-mode manufacturing capabilities
- Quality and vendor supplier certification
- Inventory and logistics
- Finance and accounting
- Risk management
- Enterprise performance management
Best for
Growing and large companies
Product limitations
No pre-packaged aerospace-specific functionality
Product differentiator
- Global supply chain capabilities
- Product flexibility
Need help with ERP technology selection?
Implement aerospace ERP software with Itransition
ERP consulting
We help aerospace companies make a sound ERP technology choice and support them the implementation to ensure ERP project success.
ERP implementation
We offer end-to-end implementation of the market-leading off-the-shelf ERP platforms or custom ERP software, from business needs analysis to solution deployment and after-launch support.
Success factors to maximize aerospace ERP ROI
Integration flexibility
ERP software should offer sets of pre-built connectors, open/standardized APIs to connect well with heavily customized software, legacy homegrown systems, and applications with different interface protocols.
Robust security
An ERP solution should offer granular access control, sensitive data anonymization and dynamic masking, end-to-end encryption, and multi-factor authentication to comply with strict industry-specific regulatory requirements.
Mobile-ready
ERP software should support remote access (with configurable access management capabilities) to enable an increasing number of employees to use business-critical data from mobile devices without compromising system security.
Automation
ERP software should incorporate advanced ML, AI, and IoT-enabled technologies to eliminate error-prone manual tasks performed by individual employees to free resources for performing high-value activities.
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