Most manufacturers aren't unhappy with their ERP as a whole. It keeps the books, records every transaction and holds the company together. The frustration starts when you try to plan in it. These are ten reasons we hear again and again from planners and operations managers.
- A rigid MRP calculation. The ERP's MRP module runs a fixed calculation that doesn't reflect how your plant actually works.
- Your business rules don't fit. Priorities, substitute materials, minimum batch sizes and preferred suppliers end up living in the planner's head instead of in the system.
- Excel around the ERP. The real plan is built in spreadsheets, and the ERP only records the result.
- Forecasts that only look back. History gets projected forward, but what your sales team knows never makes it into the numbers.
- Variants, formulations and alternatives are hard to model. Every exception turns into a workaround.
- You can't tell why you're buying. Requirements lose the link to the order they serve, so nobody can say which production a purchase supports.
- Replanning takes too long. A change in demand or a late supplier means redoing the plan by hand.
- Customizing the ERP is expensive. Every adaptation adds cost and makes the next upgrade harder.
- Master data is scattered. BOMs, routes and supplier conditions live in the ERP, in spreadsheets and in other systems, and they don't always agree.
- Changing ERP isn't the fix. It's long, costly and risky, and the planning problem usually moves with you to the new system.
What these add up to
The problem isn't your ERP. It's asking a system of record to do the job of a planning system.
Your ERP stays. What's new is the plan.
SmarterMRP is supply planning software for manufacturers that connects to the ERP you already have. Your ERP stays and keeps recording transactions. Your business rules stay too, configured in the plan instead of kept in someone's head. What's new is one connected plan that thinks like your factory: demand, production, materials and purchasing planned together, with every purchase proposal traceable to the order it serves and confirmed in your ERP.
Want to see it with a case like yours? Book a custom demo →
