PAK

PAK is a vertical industry ERP and PPS (production-planning-and-scheduling) system from mikronik GmbH, a German Mid-Market software house focused on manufacturing-heavy verticals. The product targets Mid-Market manufacturers — the broad mid-market segment of German SMBs — with approximately 20 to 250 employees in plastics processing (injection moulding, extrusion, thermoforming), toolmaking and mould construction, and general machinery with high variant content. The product is designed for the realities of these verticals: tool lifecycle management, multi-cavity moulds, batch traceability, material preparation and tight shop-floor control are first-class capabilities rather than bolt-ons.

Functional scope

PAK is built around a continuous order flow from quote through pre-calculation, production planning and control, shop-floor scheduling, to invoicing, post-calculation and order archive. The functional core includes the master- and movement-data structures typical for plastics processing: tools (with multi-cavity moulds, life-cycle history and maintenance records), articles with material variants, BOMs and routings with process-specific work centres. Production planning handles capacity scheduling, sequence planning and rescheduling in case of disruption. Post-calculation closes the loop by comparing planned to actual on cost, time and material consumption.

Target audience

The core target audience is Mid-Market manufacturing businesses with approximately 20 to 250 employees. Concentrations are in plastics processing (injection moulding, extrusion, thermoforming), tool and mould making, and general machinery with high variant production. The product is most defensible where tool lifecycle, multi-cavity mould management, batch traceability and material preparation are central operational concerns — where horizontal ERPs would require deep customisation to deliver the same functionality.

Architecture and deployment

PAK is built on a SQL database with a uniform user interface tailored to manufacturing operations. The software is delivered as on-premise installation on the customer's own data centre or as a managed-hosted variant on servers in Germany. Integrations to common shop-floor systems (MES, BDE / shop-floor data capture, MDE / machine data capture, scanner and labelling hardware) are part of the standard toolbox. The shop-floor depth is one of the key reasons plastics and tooling businesses choose PAK over a horizontal ERP.

DACH localisation and DATEV

PAK is built for German Mid-Market finance and tax workflow. DATEV integration — DATEV is the cooperative of German tax advisors whose data format is the SME finance-exchange standard — is supported through standard exporters so the customer's external accountant can continue working in DATEV. GoBD compliance — the German principles for proper digital bookkeeping — is part of the standard audit-trail and archiving features. ZUGFeRD and XRechnung e-invoicing are covered. Hosting in German data centres matches DSGVO expectations — DSGVO being the German implementation of GDPR.

Pricing and selection

mikronik does not publish list prices for PAK. Licensing is project-specific and depends on module selection, user count, deployment model and implementation scope. Classical perpetual-licence with maintenance and subscription/rental models are both available. Implementation runs directly through mikronik with a tightly held consulting team experienced in the addressed verticals. PAK competes with other vertical Mid-Market ERPs for plastics and machinery (Poly.ERP for the pure plastics niche, ams.erp and proAlpha for variant-rich machinery, oxaion for cross-vertical industrial Mid-Market) and with horizontal Mid-Market ERPs extended through vertical add-ons.

Related Topics

• Poly.ERP
• ams.erp
• ERP for manufacturing

Fazit

PAK ist ein hochspezialisiertes ERP- und PPS-System für mittelständische Fertigungsbetriebe in Kunststoffverarbeitung, Werkzeug- und Maschinenbau. Die tiefe Abbildung von Werkzeuglebenszyklus, Bills of Materials, Plantafel und Werkstattsteuerung sowie die enge Bindung zwischen End user und mikronik GmbH sind die zentralen Strengths. Wer in den genannten Industries produziert und eine Software sucht, die ihre Industriesanforderungen ohne aufwendiges Customizing abbildet, findet in PAK eine ernstzunehmende Option in der Vorauswahl. Konkurrenten wie ProAlpha, abas, Psipenta oder spezialisierte Microsoft-Dynamics-Industrieslösungen sollten in einem fairen Comparison allerdings ebenfalls evaluiert werden, idealerweise im Rahmen einer strukturierten Auswahlbegleitung.

Vendor homepage of PAK ERP/PPS

Current view of the website https://www.mikronik.de/