Häufig gestellte Fragen
ERP or MES – which covers what in manufacturing?
In the classic automation pyramid, the ERP handles the higher-level, commercial planning (what is produced by when, materials, orders, costs), while the MES (Manufacturing Execution System) sits as the layer below it and executes and controls production in real time (how and with what exactly things are produced). The ERP therefore plans rather coarsely on a daily-to-weekly grid, whereas the MES fine-controls at second-to-minute granularity and reports actual data back to the ERP. For simple manufacturing structures, an integrated ERP production module with shop-floor and machine data collection (BDE/MDE) can be sufficient, while a dedicated MES becomes worthwhile with a higher number of machines, many parallel orders and hard real-time requirements. The exact dividing line, however, depends heavily on industry, company size and degree of automation, which is why it should be defined per project.
How does an ERP for discrete manufacturing differ from one for process manufacturing?
Discrete manufacturing produces countable individual items from multiple components (such as machines, devices, vehicles or furniture) and therefore relies on multi-level bills of materials, work plans (routings) and frequently variant configurators. Process manufacturing, by contrast, creates a new end product — usually one that can no longer be broken down — through mixing, blending or chemical transformation, and therefore works with recipes or formulas, variable quantities and units, and extensive batch management. Accordingly, a process-manufacturing ERP often needs additional functions such as yield calculation, by-product handling and in some cases LIMS integration for quality assurance. Many companies have hybrid requirements, so a system that fits the respective manufacturing logic — or covers both worlds — is a key selection criterion.
How long does an ERP implementation take in manufacturing?
Project duration depends heavily on complexity, the number of sites and the depth of customisation, and in practice ranges from a few months for a close-to-standard cloud implementation to well over a year for heavily customised mid-market projects. Multi-plant and corporate roll-outs with interfaces to MES, CAD/PLM and finance systems can take even longer. A substantial share of the effort goes not into the software itself but into concept work, migration of master and transaction data (including validation of bills of materials and routings) as well as testing and training. Structured preparation with a clear requirements specification and clean master data noticeably shortens the timeline; the ERP implementation checklist provides orientation.
Which interfaces are critical in a manufacturing ERP?
Particularly critical are the connections to CAD/PDM/PLM for handing over bills of materials and design data, to MES/BDE for operator feedback, and to the machine level (MDE) for the automatic capture of machine data and machine states. For machine communication, the vendor-independent standard OPC UA (IEC 62541) has become established, bringing data from controllers of different manufacturers into the ERP without proprietary special solutions. On the commercial side, connections to shipping/EDI for customer integration and to accounting (such as DATEV or SAP FI) are relevant, with open standards such as REST API, OData, EDIFACT and ZUGFeRD helping to avoid expensive custom interfaces. For more complex landscapes, iPaaS platforms can make integration more flexible than pure point-to-point connections.
How important is batch and serial number traceability in a manufacturing ERP?
Traceability is regulated with varying strictness depending on the industry: in food and feed production, Article 18 of EU Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 requires tracking at least one step forward and one step back, and for food of animal origin, Implementing Regulation (EU) No 931/2011 additionally mandates passing on a reference number to identify the lot, batch or consignment. In regulated fields such as pharma and medical technology, GMP requirements and documented processes come on top, while in discrete manufacturing serial number tracking primarily serves warranty, complaint handling and recall processing. Even though internal batch linkage is not legally mandatory in every case, without it a recall makes it nearly impossible to narrow down which specific batches are affected. A manufacturing ERP should therefore be able to map end-to-end batch and serial number management across goods receipt, production and shipping.
What does an ERP for manufacturing cost, and should you choose cloud or on-premise?
Costs vary greatly with user count, functional scope and depth of customisation, so mid-sized manufacturing companies should expect total amounts ranging from the mid five-figure to the six-figure euro range over several years depending on size and complexity, and even more in larger multi-plant projects. A substantial share typically goes to implementation and consulting, a smaller share to licences or subscription fees and to training. On the cloud-versus-on-premise question, manufacturing is considered comparatively on-premise-leaning because sensitive production data, established IT structures and real-time machine connectivity play a role, even though the cloud share among mid-sized companies is rising steadily. A sound decision should rest on a total-cost-of-ownership analysis over several years; the guide to ERP costs offers orientation.