A recent article over on Industry Week on 5 Critical Issues for ERP in Project-based Manufacturing outlined why ERP systems alone are not enough for project based manufacturing (and manufacturing in general).
The issues outlined in the article were:
- Bidding and Quoting
- Project Visibility
- Managing Change
- Financial Performance Tracking
- Rapid Time to Value
A carefully evaluation of many of the ERP tools on the market will reveal that:
- They don’t truly support modern e-Negotiation, and the company will also need a modern e-Sourcing tool (which may have to be integrated).
- As far as these systems are concerned, user-defined push alerts, flexible automatic notifications, and real-time reporting is still a pipe dream. A real time data analysis tool will be required.
- Flexibility is limited. At a a minimum, good processes will be required. A change management add-on may be required as well.
- Lots of data is tracked and stored, but financial analysis capabilities are limited. A real time data analysis tool will be required here as well.
- Implementation is rarely quick, and payback typically longer than expected. That’s why supplementary Sourcing and Procurement systems are generally required.
In other words, a good ERP system can provide a great foundation, but it will rarely meet all of an organization’s need.