A manufacturer needs answers to three questions every morning: what should we make today, do we have the material and are we making money on it. A manufacturing ERP exists to answer those from data rather than from the production manager's memory.
Bill of materials and routing
The BOM is the recipe and the routing is the method. Everything else in the ERP is calculated from them, so they must be accurate.
Planning
Planning turns orders and forecasts into what to buy and what to make.
Shop floor
Shop floor data entry has to be simple enough for an operator on a tablet at the machine, or it will be entered at the end of the shift from memory.
Data entered at the end of a shift is a guess. Capture it at the machine.
Quality
Quality checks belong inside the flow of material, not in a separate file.
Inventory, purchase and sales
The commercial modules connect the plant to suppliers and customers.
Costing and finance
Costing shows which products and customers earn money. Compare standard cost with actual material, labour, machine and overhead cost per work order. Integrate with accounting so that stock values and cost of goods sold come from the same data.
How to phase it
Start with inventory, purchase, sales and BOM-based production entry. Add planning and quality next. Machine integration and advanced scheduling come last, when the basic data is trusted. Plants that try to switch on every module at once usually end up using only the invoicing screen.
