Selecting a Manufacturing ERP System in 7 Easy Steps

ERP selection is a dauting process. It has a large domain, and it can eat up a lot of time. This blog will give easy seven steps to follow for manufacturing ERP selection. Hence, read the blog till the end.

On a macro level, there are some factors which one must consider while selecting new ERP. Factors like why do you need new ERP? Can the new ERP solve your future problems also? is the new ERP easy to use? does the vendor give proper support & Services? what is the market reputation of the vendor?

Besides these factors, there are many more which can help in selecting a manufacturing ERP system. Through this blog we will unearth all major factors and go through a step-by-step ERP selection process. But first let us see what you will get in this blog.

In this blog:

• When You Should Think of a New ERP?
• What do You Expect from an ERP?
• Things to Consider While Selecting a Manufacturing ERP???
• Final thought?

When You Should Think of a New ERP?

Consider a situation where you are a food manufacturer. At the time of Christmas, you see a surge in cake orders, and it continued till New Year.

Since your raw material inventory was not ready for this surge, and you did not have any mechanism to see inventory status, you missed some opportunities. These misses not only costed you monetarily, but also damaged your image in the market.

You realize that last year, during the season you did not face problem and you could manage easily. This was because you had not outgrown your existing software/methods of inventory management. But this year, you had more clients, and your business had grown.

If you have also faced this situation, or can foresee the situation to happen with you, it is the right time that you should consider a change in the existing system or methodology. It is time to deploy a new food manufacturing ERP for your business.?

There are many more incidences which can lead to the need of a new manufacturing ERP software.

Briefly, you must consider a new manufacturing ERP software when:

• Your business expands and the present methodology or system is not capable enough to handle it.??
• Due to supply chain issues, you are missing opportunities very often.?
• You are using multiple software applications which are not interconnected, causing duplicate data, inconsistency, and lack of real-time visibility across departments.?
• Ambiguity persists in every department regarding the day – to –day processes.
• Your manufacturing unit is facing huge wastage, delays in reports and decision-making process.?
• Various processes of your business face bottlenecks.
• You are unable to observe and analyse various key performing indices (KPIs).

These are just a few but, there are many more situations when you should consider giving away your existing methodology or system and embark on a journey to?new manufacturing ERP deployment.

What Should You Expect from a Manufacturing ERP?

A manufacturing ERP software is a digital tool to make your business processes simpler, more structured and streamlined.

If you are blown away with the ERP buzz, and expecting some miracles, please stop yourself from dreaming.

These are the most common outcome that you can expect from any manufacturing ERP:

• You will get streamlined business processes?
• You can automate your business processes ?
• You can increase efficiency?
• You can optimize manufacturing operations and enhance productivity?
• You can better manage your supply chain, inventory, transportation, and warehouse?
• You can unify departments and get a uniform flow of truth throughout ?
• You can mitigate risks and be more compliant?
• You can have real-time reporting with better and faster decision making?
• Your organization can better adapt to changing trends, and disruptions?

A manufacturing ERP software can help you to achieve your goals by providing various capabilities and enhancing your efficiency.

If you go type specific, like discreet manufacturing and process manufacturing, selecting a software serving the specific type will offer type-specific capabilities. For example, a process manufacturing ERP like BatchMaster ERP can offer:

• Formulation capabilities?
• Laboratory module for physical and chemical property analysis
• Multiple Units of Measure in weight, volume and discrete along with their conversions
• Batch processing capabilities with understanding of Raw material, Intermediates, WIPs, finished goods, BOMs, etc.
• Density calculations
• Determination of shelf life/expiry date of your inventory?
• Categorization of inventory by various characteristics like potency, storing conditions etc.

Things To Consider While Selecting a Manufacturing ERP:

An ERP selection process is time taking, but it is worth every second spent. Selection of any manufacturing ERP software might take 14 to 24 weeks depending upon your business size.

Whatsoever is your decision maker, should make sure that the new system supports your organization for at least ten years.

Continue reading further to know about the seven simple steps for selecting a manufacturing ERP.

Step 1: Discovery –

In this step, identify exactly why do you need an ERP system? In other words, which organizational functions do you want to simplify by deploying an ERP system.

Do you want?a system that processes foreign currency exchange gain and loss? Does it improve order processing? Enables defining multi-level Bill of Materials (BOM) ??Supports multiple warehouses and packagings.

Make a list of all the functions?that you want to accomplish. Involve various departments, discuss among team leaders.

Involvement of all?teams is very essential, as the software will have an impact on entire organization and not just on one department.

Step 2: IT alignment–

Although an ERP is not merely an IT project, it is a project of the whole organization, yet you should not overlook it.

How expert is your IT team? What is your geolocation? How resourceful is your IT department? Can you make more expenses on hardware? How robust is your IT security system?

Depending upon such factor you can decide to choose on- premises or cloud-based implementation.

Cloud-based ERP comes on SaaS model and therefore it is subscription based. This requires less hardware and IT trained staff and therefore it is pocket friendly.

Most of the organizations today are moving towards cloud-based ERP because of these reasons.

You must determine what is your IT strategy and then you can choose the model accordingly.

Step 3: ERP team building–

Since ERP is the software which all the departments will use, hence having a team for the project is a clever idea.

This team must consist of members from all departments, so that all departments have a fair representation.

Having representation from all department can ensure that organization considers the challenges of all departments while finalizing the ERP.

This way it will be?able to cater to maximum challenges of the organization.

Step 4- Requirement documentation-

After having discovery phase, document all the requirements. This document must contain all the business related and non-related queries.

For example, is the vendor experienced enough to take up the project? Does the vendor give good support?

Does the vendor have expertise in your specific area of manufacturing? Does the vendor run an intensive training program? These and such queries must be addressed.

To get the answers of these all-non-business queries, your team must research, connect with various ERP vendors, arrange demos, read reviews about their support & service and understand the positives and negatives of all the ERPs in consideration.

Enter the vendor's name in the document which fulfil your criteria.

Now a document is ready which has: ?

• All the challenges that you want to be met,?
• Expectations from the vendors (like years of experience, reputation etc),?
• And list of vendors fulfilling your selection criteria.

Step 5- ERP exploration-

This is the time when you should involve senior authorities of the organization.

Arrange a detailed demo. The demo must be in-sync with your business processes. This demo can be a deciding demo; therefore, you must express your expectation to the vendor in advance.

After the demo, discuss among the team if the software caters to your core issues? Does it provide value for money??Decide you want on-premises or cloud-based service?

Step 6- Thorough evaluation-

Based on demos taken, price consideration, scalability provision, scrutinize those options which fall in your?preference criteria. Discuss on each option in detail. If required, re-connect with the vendor to clarify more doubts.

This selection can be based on various criteria, like: ?

• Requirement Fulfillment
• Industry experience of vendor ?
• Vendor reputation?
• Cost?
• Scalability?
• Vendor viability ?
• Support & Services
• Training Program

Step 7- Deal closure-

Once you have checked all the boxes and you are satisfied with all the parameters, it's time to sign the deal. Go with the selected vendor, sign the deal, and start the digital transformation as soon as possible.

Final Thought:

Your manufacturing organization needs power of ERP. Now don't delay in providing the thrust your organization requires to increase productivity.

If you are a process manufacturer, then BatchMaster can be your digital partner.

With more than 30 years of experience in transforming process manufacturers across the globe, BatchMaster can check all the boxes for you.

If you are a startup, or small size business from Bangladesh, Australia, or Europe you can try BM Lite. Alternatively, if you are from US, try BM Express.

To know more about standard BatchMaster product, BM Lite or BM Express, please feel free to connect with?BatchMaster .