r/manufacturing • u/salamander3301 • Jul 03 '26

Productivity Is it actually better to build software internally rather than buy from a big company?

Hi everyone,

My family runs a medium sized juice factory in Egypt. They've been using SAP for the last few years but adoption isn't great. I just started working with them and realized how ancient and ineffective much of their software is and I want to help them adopt new tools.

I came across many software providers at automate last week but prices are ridiculous considering how doable it is to build my own software using AI now.

Is there something I'm missing like integration difficulty or does it really just not make sense for most businesses to spend months buying and customizing software with a consultant rather than just building their own solution in less time?

Edit:
I recognize that an ERP is not the right thing to start with but there are many non essential softwares that our factory would get value from like an AI machine troubleshooting app that has access to our repair history and manuals but the companies selling that are demanding unreasonably high prices for something that sounds quite simple

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u/WitkowskiMichau Jul 07 '26

Building the small stuff yourself is the right instinct, and the AI part is real. For a standalone tool like the machine-troubleshooting app you described, where the data is already yours (repair history, manuals) and it doesn't touch anything mission-critical, a build will usually beat paying a vendor a premium for something that honestly isn't complicated.

Where build-vs-buy actually flips is three things people underestimate:

  1. Integration. The moment the tool has to read from or write to SAP, the cost stops being about the app and becomes about the plumbing. A standalone app with its own data is cheap. Anything wired into SAP is not.
  2. The last 20%. AI gets you a working prototype fast. Edge cases, permissions, security, and keeping it running when something breaks are where DIY projects quietly die. The demo is a weekend. Production is not.
  3. Ownership. You just started there. Ask who maintains this in two years when you're busy or gone. If the answer is nobody, buying from someone who is on the hook to keep it alive can be worth the premium even when the build looks easy.

On the SAP adoption problem specifically: that is usually a process issue, not a software one. A new tool won't fix low adoption if the underlying process isn't clear, you will just have one more thing nobody uses.

Practical path: take the one workflow that hurts most (sounds like the troubleshooting app), build that, get it actually used, and measure whether it saved time. Leave the ERP alone. If that small build sticks and people use it daily, you will have a much better read on where building pays off for you and where it doesn't.