How it shows up
- What you can promise to ship is a conversation, not a fact in the system.
- Shop-floor events do not update the picture planning is using.
- Actual cost is a monthly exercise, not a live companion to the job.
- Quality, rework and scrap are recorded where finance cannot see them in time.
- A custom product line lives in spreadsheets beside the ERP.
Why it matters
ERPs are strong at inventory and accounting, weaker at the messy middle of this plant. Teams protect delivery by keeping a side schedule. Cost then becomes archaeology.
If nothing changes
- You sell capacity you do not have, or refuse work you could have taken.
- Variance is a post-mortem, not a steering wheel.
- The person who 'knows the floor' becomes irreplaceable.
- Custom work (often the best margin) is the least supported path.
When it is working
Promise, produce, and cost share a timeline. Exceptions on the floor change what sales is allowed to promise. Custom rules have a place that is not a private spreadsheet.
Problems we commonly work on
Possible systems
- A production picture trustworthy enough to promise against.
- Capture of actuals (labour, scrap, rework) that costing can use.
- The custom workflow the ERP will not hold.
- Integration, not replacement, of the ERP if it already does the standard jobs.
Signals worth watching
- Promise date versus actual ship.
- Time until a floor exception is visible to planning and to cost.
- Share of orders that require a side spreadsheet.
- Margin known before the job closes, not after.
Integrations
- ERP / inventory
- Accounting
- Quality records if they already exist
- Machine or shop-floor data only if it is usable
Roles this hits
Selected work
Comparable files are walked through in a working session. We do not invent percentages for the website.
Describe the process as it runs. A specification is optional.