Unplanned downtime is draining manufacturers. According to the State of Industrial Maintenance 2024 report, 30% complain about rising costs, and each hour of downtime averages $25K in losses. Every breakdown means wasted time, lost revenue, and chaos on the shop floor.
If that sounds all too familiar, don’t worry. Build custom maintenance software compatible with your manufacturing ERP as a solution. Discover why it’s effective and how to create one in our post.
Why ERP Systems Fall Short on Maintenance
It’s not that manufacturing ERP software solutions are insufficient. They’re perfect for managing inventory, finance, and supply chains. But when it comes to maintenance, they often leave something to be desired. Here’s where we tend to see the gaps:
Common Gaps in ERP Maintenance Modules
Many ERPs include maintenance modules. But they typically look like they’re not built for the people who actually use them: frontline technicians and maintenance teams. That’s where the problems pop up:
Poor UI/UX for frontline teams. Lots of maintenance modules are aimed at back-office users, not technicians in the field. Clunky, desktop-focused interfaces and complex workflows slow down work instead of speeding it up.
Lack of flexibility in scheduling and logging maintenance tasks. The maintenance process doesn’t run on a perfect schedule. And still, many ERP systems struggle with ad-hoc repairs and on-the-fly adjustments. This reactive approach has consequences — facilities that solely use run-to-failure maintenance are twice as likely to see rising incidents and unplanned downtime costs.
Difficulty integrating sensor data or predictive analytics. Modern manufacturing largely relies on IoT in industrial maintenance and predictive maintenance tools — with 30% of facilities leveraging a PdM program. Unfortunately, many ERPs cannot process this data. Because of that, maintenance teams miss early warning signs of failures.
Business Impact of These Gaps
So, what are the consequences of using rigid, pre-built maintenance modules? It’s more than just an inconvenience:
More downtime. Without easy scheduling or automated, real-time alerts, teams miss critical maintenance tasks. This leads to unexpected breakdowns and, hence, downtime.
Higher unplanned costs. Emergency repairs cost far more than preventive or predictive maintenance, which reduces profit margins.
Limited visibility for ops teams. When maintenance data is hidden deep within the ERP, operations managers don’t get a clear, real-time view of equipment health. This makes it harder to optimize production.
Designing Maintenance Tools That Work with Your ERP
If your ERP’s maintenance module cannot handle its intended tasks, don’t rush to throw your ERP away. The solution is to build or adopt the tools that fill the gaps.
Key Solutions
Enhance your ERP for manufacturing with the proper maintenance tools. Here are the best ones:
Custom dashboards for maintenance tracking. These give your teams a centralized, real-time view of equipment status, upcoming tasks, and urgent work orders. They make factory equipment tracking significantly easier.
Preventive and predictive scheduling tools. While reactive maintenance is still a thing for around 57% of manufacturers , it doesn’t work. Move to preventive maintenance strategies and predictive analytics for machinery to fix problems long before they cause downtime.
Integration with sensors, barcode/RFID systems, and work order systems. Connecting your enterprise software with these systems simplifies asset management and automates work order creation. Plus, collecting and logging data on your equipment becomes a breeze.
Mobile-friendly interfaces for technicians. A mobile-first design lets your maintenance team log tasks, scan parts, and receive alerts on the go. It’s a decent alternative to clunky ERP screens.
Must-Have ERP Integration Points
To get a clear picture of your maintenance processes, integrate your custom maintenance software with the following parts of your ERP:
Asset records. Sync maintenance data with your ERP’s asset management module to track equipment performance over time.
Work orders. Update your ERP when a maintenance request is created, assigned, or completed to keep operations consistent.
Inventory & parts tracking. Connect maintenance software to your ERP’s inventory system to ensure the right parts are available when necessary.
Maintenance history logs. Transfer repair and service history to your ERP for better compliance tracking and maintenance-related decisions.
Business Benefits of Custom Maintenance Software for Manufacturing
Developing custom maintenance software that’s compatible with your ERP solutions for manufacturing isn’t just about making life easier for your technicians. It’s beneficial for your business as well. Here are the main advantages:
Improved equipment reliability and reduced unplanned downtime. With better scheduling and real-time monitoring, along with the preventive or predictive analytics that custom software offers, you achieve significant production downtime reduction and catch small issues before they escalate. Just think of the $25K an hour you’ll save!
Easier compliance with industry standards. Working under ISO, GMP, OSHA, and other regulations becomes more manageable with maintenance software. Why? It lets you make sure all maintenance activities are properly documented.
Enhanced data accuracy and reporting. As we said, limited visibility is a real problem with built-in maintenance modules. Custom software, in turn, keeps your maintenance data centralized, accurate, and readily accessible. Plus, it lets you generate reports on asset performance, compliance, and beyond.
Cost savings through preventive vs. reactive maintenance. You already know that emergency repairs, a thing in run-to-failure maintenance, are costly. Not only do you have to pay for these fixes, but you also lose production time. Preventive maintenance, on the other hand, is all about planning.
Key Considerations When Building ERP-Compatible Maintenance Software
So, you’re convinced and ready to build custom, ERP-compatible maintenance software. What’s next? Consider the following factors before starting development:
ERP compatibility. Your maintenance software must be compatible with your manufacturing ERP. Use open APIs, middleware, or direct integrations with legacy and proprietary systems.
Ensuring data integrity and security between systems. Since your project will likely connect multiple systems — your ERP, maintenance software, IoT solutions, you name it — data integrity and security are a must. Consider implementing end-to-end encryption, access controls, and other protection measures, as well as creating a centralized data repository.
Involving ops/maintenance teams in UX design. It doesn’t matter how powerful your system is if your team cannot or simply doesn’t understand how to use it. Work directly with maintenance technicians and operations managers to come up with a truly user-friendly interface.
Planning for scalability and future upgrades. Your business is going to grow, and so are your maintenance needs. Make sure your maintenance software can adapt accordingly. Design an architecture that can scale easily, handle increased volumes of data, and integrate with new techs like Artificial Intelligence for AI-driven operational efficiency.
Choosing the right development partner with manufacturing & ERP experience. In case you cannot build a custom maintenance solution yourself or don’t have an internal team for this task, look for a software development partner. Make sure you work with a company that understands manufacturing industry standards and has successfully implemented ERP and maintenance systems.
To Sum Up
You’ve seen how poor maintenance can be damaging to your business. Unplanned downtime, costly repairs, limited visibility — all this hints at the fact that you can’t afford to be reactive. You need to be proactive. You need smarter tools. Built-in maintenance modules simply won’t cut it.
On the flip side, there’s custom maintenance software compatible with your manufacturing ERP. It prevents those expensive breakdowns. It makes sure you don’t waste your time waiting for another emergency fix. Ultimately, it does much more — optimizing your entire manufacturing process.
So, if you’re serious about building custom ERP-compatible maintenance solutions, reach out to Integrio. We’ll make sure you forget those clunky modules and adopt a better approach to maintenance.
FAQ
ERP maintenance modules are part of either off-the-shelf manufacturing ERP systems or custom ERP solutions developed years ago. While they’re great for basic maintenance tasks, they often fall short when it comes to specific needs — like real-time data integration and collection or flexibility in scheduling.
Custom maintenance software, on the other hand, is designed for the specific business’s operations. It fills the gaps left by ERP modules. For example, it can offer predictive maintenance, mobile-friendly interfaces, real-time insights, on-the-fly scheduling, and even more.
Absolutely. But the thing is, you’ll have to ensure compatibility yourself. To do this, use open APIs, middleware, or custom-built integrations. This way, you’ll make sure that even your legacy system that wasn’t designed for modern technology can still benefit from up-to-date maintenance features.
The time depends on the complexity of your needs and the systems you’re integrating with. A basic maintenance tool with preventive scheduling and custom dashboards may take around six months to develop. For a more complex solution that features predictive maintenance and IoT sensor integration, you’ll need about a year.
If you need to speed up the development process, consider partnering with a dedicated vendor who really knows their way around ERP solutions for manufacturing.
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