Industry Overview
Finding the right industrial ERP system is critical to industrial equipment manufacturers because they must have an efficient way to manage the production of complex goods. This is true across all three categories of the industrial equipment industry, which include:
- Industrial machinery
- Automation equipment and heating
- Ventilation and air-conditioning systems
A growing part of the industrial ERP industry is repair and remanufacturing. These departments and companies require the ability to tear down and rebuild equipment, in addition to other critical tasks.
This industry includes companies that manufacture machinery and equipment for both commercial and industrial use. This can yield a wide range of machines, including:
- Computer equipment
- Engines
- Turbines
- Elevators
- Conveyors
- Cranes
- Monorails,
- Refrigeration equipment
- Tractors
- Metalworking machines
- Power-driven hand tools
- Office equipment
The machinery segment of the industry includes over 28,000 companies.
Critical Requirements of an Industrial ERP Software Solution
Manufacturing in the industrial equipment industry is typically make-to-order or engineer-to-order, and in highly complex applications. The end product may be configured from a set of optional, pre-designed features and options, or from specific customer needs that may have to be engineered. The selling process usually involves complex estimating.
Industrial equipment manufacturing companies have unique requirements. Estimating and configuration are capabilities needed by sales and engineering. The lifecycle of a new piece of equipment is considered a job usually in months rather than not days, which may call for enterprise project management software for the assigned project manager.
Parts used in manufacturing are oftentimes specific to the job. This means purchasing and receiving need to segregate POs and receipts to a job. The ability to compare actual costs to estimated costs is vital to profit analysis.
These are a few of the unique challenges and critical requirements that should be offered by a state-of-the-art industrial ERP software.
- Customer Relationship Management (CRM Software)
- Quoting and Estimating
- Order Processing
- Product Configurator
- Product Data Management (PDM)
- Product Lifecycle Management Software (PLM)
- Document Management
- Engineering Change Management
- Forecasting and Demand Planning
- Project Manufacturing
- Lean Manufacturing
- Supply Chain Management Software
- Advanced Manufacturing Planning
- Quality
- Warehouse Management Software (WMS)
- Plant Equipment
- Field Service
- Repair
- Cost Accounting
- Project Accounting
