What to Look for in Manufacturing ERP Software

Struggles Facing Small and Midsize Manufacturers

Whether operating a make-to-stock, make-to-order, configure-to-order, or engineer-to-order production environment, manufacturing companies are looking to optimize daily operations, remove waste, simplify processes, and improve manufacturing flexibility.

Across the board, small and midsize manufacturers have the same struggles:

• Using outdated systems for accounting and operations and is operationally weak
• Doing lot tracking manually through spreadsheets
• Fighting with lousy inventory management in their low-end accounting software
• Need to follow the cost of goods sold on manufactured products
• Entering manufacturing order information manually between other systems causes errors

How ERPs Can Help Manufacturers

When looking at manufacturing ERP software, these manufacturers want a software solution that will address their struggles and meet these top priorities for the business:

• Manage CRM, sales orders, inventory, and production in a single manufacturing ERP software system
• Better control of raw and purchased inventory items, locations, and quantities
• Control serial and lot numbers for incoming and outgoing products
• Gain insight into available promised quantities
• Ability to grow into bar code scanning for incoming, in-process, and outbound products
• Use MRP to ensure raw materials and purchased goods will meet production demand
• It can be deployed either on a server at their facility or in the cloud

As a foundational business platform, an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system provides integrated, streamlined, and automated processes for manufacturing.

Manufacturing ERP Software Built-in Process

When a company improves operational efficiency, manufacturing throughput is improved, and reduced material costs help the business stay competitive. With SAP Business One, manufacturers have a system to help achieve profitable growth, improve service, meet customer demands, and manage internal and external costs.