Plenty of ERP systems handle finance, purchasing and stock competently and are still a poor fit for a plant. The shortfall appears in three places: how production cost is captured, how far traceability actually reaches, and whether the shop floor can record work without leaving the floor.
Standard costing hides the answer
A standard cost set annually tells you what a unit was supposed to cost. It cannot tell you what last week's batch actually consumed in material, labour, machine time and scrap. Without that, margin by product is an estimate presented as a fact.
If your costing cannot explain why two batches of the same product cost differently, it is a budget, not a cost.
Traceability has to reach both ways
Forward traceability answers where a batch went. Backward answers what went into it. A recall needs both, quickly, and the requirement usually arrives from a customer or an auditor rather than from your own planning.
| Capability | Must reach | Common shortfall |
|---|---|---|
| Batch and serial | Raw material through to customer delivery | Tracking finished goods only |
| Quality records | Attached to the batch, not a folder | Results stored outside the system |
| Consumption | Actual issue against work order | Backflushed at standard only |
| Scrap and rework | Captured with reason codes | Absorbed into variance |
The floor has to be able to record work
If recording production means walking to an office PC, it will happen at the end of the shift from memory. Capture has to be possible where the work happens, on a terminal or a scanner, or your data will always be several hours behind reality.
Put these in the demo
- Build our actual multi-level BOM, including a substitute component.
- Run a work order, record partial completion, and scrap a unit with a reason.
- Show me cost for that specific batch, broken into material, labour and overhead.
- Trace that batch backwards to supplier receipt and forwards to delivery.
- Show the same on a shop-floor terminal, not a manager's laptop.
