The Cost of Complacency in Manufacturing

May 20, 2015

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Are You Asking Enough of Your ERP?

The concept of ERP emerged from the world of manufacturing. It started out as Material Requirements Planning (MRP), a tool for manufacturing and production to use in managing the planning and procurement of material. It then evolved to Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP II), helping to manage potentially complicated manufacturing processes, but finance and accounting were left on their own to find business software to help them take fiscal control. But then MRP II evolved further, bringing these two functions together under one roof, so to speak. MRP II became Enterprise Resource Planning(ERP), on its way to becoming a complete, integrated, end-­‐to-­‐end solution that runs your business. 

All too often manufacturers start their ERP journey with this goal in mind, but never reach the final destination. They achieve their first milestone, breathe a sigh of relief, stop implementing, and go back to business as usual. If they don’t even take full advantage of what they have, they are even less likely to continue innovating. Sooner, rather than later, their ERP solution becomes less of an enabler and more of a liability. Do you find yourself falling into this trap? Don’t succumb to complacency. If your current ERP isn’t doing the job for you now, it is unlikely it will in the future. Are you just fooling yourself into thinking you can afford to wait? 

How Far Have You Come?

Mint Jutras has been benchmarking ERP implementations for years now, and throughout that time it has always defined ERP as an integrated suite of modules that provides the operational and transactional system of record of a business. However, manufacturers need it to do much more and should expect those manufacturing ERP solutions that evolved from MRP to live up to that promise. And yet it would appear that many of the manufacturers participating in our 2015 Enterprise Solution Study have not fully implemented an integrated suite that provides both fiscal and operational support of their businesses. Although we think they need more, many are actually operating with less.

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