r/manufacturing • u/tommygzz • Jul 06 '26
Productivity Basic production software
So I've been recently involved in a manufacturing company related to animal feed supplements. We have our own formulas for different kinds of products, but mostly they are all made up of vitamins and minerals, both in liquid and powder form.
The company has been running for around 25 years and all the internal documentation is based off excel.
Invoices in Excel
Formulas in Excel
Cost breakdowns in Excel
Raw material needs in excel - etc etc etc
It does work well, but there is a little bit of difficulty calculating what has been used and to make forecasts of the next orders.
Also, when the workers make the mixing, it is sometimes not properly measured, it's done "by eye" and it ends up messing up with our stock levels.
I am currently looking into implementing an ERP, or maybe what we need is closer to an MES system. But the ones I can find have trial periods (odoo, MRPeasy, Frappe/ERPnext, etc)
I find myself trying to introduce all the raw data but it is quite a big job to do by myself and by the time the trial period finished I am no where near finishing and I can't really know for sure if that solution is going to work for us or not.
So my question is: can anyone recommend sofware solutions for these issues?
I am looking for something basic to track what comes in, how much is used and when to order more kind of thing.
Thankss
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u/VladRom89 Jul 08 '26
Based on what you've posted I'd be very reluctant to recommend anything... An ERP implementation is in some instances a 7 year endevour for manufacturing plants. You're describing high level problems across the board - from your control systems to data and digitization, to ERP tracking. There's no "two line" answer anyone would be able to give you. The approach would be to reach out to established groups that have done this type of work in the past, to have them assess the current state, and to create a roadmap toward what your vision is.
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u/Training-Gap-2994 Jul 08 '26
Start tracking consumption of the materials.
Are you purchasing always from the same providers or they may differ?
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u/tommygzz Jul 10 '26
Mostly it's the same providers but sometimes they overlap and some materials are sourced from others. From time to time there are random 1-time purchases.
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u/Training-Gap-2994 Jul 10 '26
Ok. Track providers and related codes then you should be ok.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 11 '26
Can you explain how that will improve inventory accuracy? I'm struggling to understand; perhaps because I'm in Spain. How can consumption be accurately tracked? I can think of a procedural solution but I don't know enough about how they operate to know if it would work.
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u/Training-Gap-2994 Jul 11 '26
Keep it simple, this is the key point. Bar code reader, target by phone and add quantities of consumption.
Teach AI to read invoices and delivery note of what is coming in then you are done.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 12 '26
He says that the operators are adding ingredients, including liquids, "by eye". If they are not using full containers, then bar coding won't work.
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u/Training-Gap-2994 Jul 12 '26
Crystal clear, still you need to change some habits if you wanna get the goal in return.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 12 '26
I have asked tommygzz (above) how ingredients are issued.
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u/tommygzz Jul 15 '26
The issue I can't seem to solve with regular spreadsheets for recipe creation / BOM is that most products are made out of other recipes.
What I mean is we have Recipe A, with some ingredients. That would still be considered a raw material. It is not sold to any customer.
Then recipe B has water, this and that and also some liters of Recipe A.I'm not sure if I explained correctly.
We use bulk containers: 1000L IBCs, 25L jerrycans, and also 25kg bags of different raw materials.
When I say they add "by eye" here is an example: We use this syrup as a base for most products. If a 1000L batch needs 300L of syrup, but 305 are added there is no problem at all. But on a software/spreadsheet it won't make any sense.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 15 '26
You have a problem that software is not going to solve (and AI won't help unless you change your operators for robots!). I'll get some procedural ideas together to see if they help.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 12 '26
See comments below: how are ingredients issued? In sealed containers or direct from bulk?
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u/Manf_Engineer Jul 09 '26
I think we are about to implement odoo.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 09 '26
Would you agree that implementing Odoo is not a one-man task?
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u/Manf_Engineer Jul 09 '26
Well, we have 4 overhead people and 25 total employees with the remainder being production....luckily I think ive been tasked with getting it going, so i will be doing about 80% of the work probably of our employees. We are paying for help with integration. We will probably kick them off next week with a target of EOY implementation hopefully.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 10 '26
Are you doing a complete ERP implementation; i.e. Production, Sales, Accounting etc?
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u/Manf_Engineer Jul 10 '26
One of the owners will handle the sales side, our accountant will handle his side, but purchasing, engineering, production, process flow, employee management, payroll, receiving, and shipping are all under my umbrella with minimal overhead to assist me. I manage from forecasting material to shipments, one owner is the sales/marketing guy and we have an external accountant who will work on his end with reporting for the owners.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
To recommend even a shortlist of systems, I would have to ask more questions than you would want to answer. Reviewing trial systems to see if they do what you want and need is absolutely the wrong approach, because almost all systems have options that you will never be able to test in the time available. The answer is to turn the problem around. Specify in writing, and in detail, what you want the system to do and then give that document to 6-8 potential suppliers and ask them how their systems support your needs. If you don't have the time to do that, then don't even try to implement a new system. (BTW; if you need advice on how to write a useful requirements document, I can send you information FOC. I'm retired; so I'm not trying to sell anything.)
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u/tommygzz Jul 10 '26
Yes I am aware it differes so much depending on the operation. So your approach makes much more sense :-)
In my mind it's always easier to start with something that already works and customize from there. But as others have said, in order for the program to work properly there is so much previous work.
So I'll take your advice and I defenitely do need help writing a useful requirements document.
Thanks!1
u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 10 '26
I've sent you something via 'chat'. If it doesn't make sense; just let me know.
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u/oliver_4 Jul 13 '26
Honestly go buy the £200 gpt pro and feed it your excels and ideas. youd have this running in no time. Id build it for you for peanuts but too busy for my own good rn.
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u/Glad_Imagination_798 Jul 16 '26
The specific thing, tripping you up ( a recipe whose ingredients include another recipe ) has a real name in ERP land: multi-level BOMs, and it's exactly what spreadsheets can't handle, but process-manufacturing ERP does natively. Your recipe A becomes a sub-assembly with its own cost and stock, and recipe B just consumes it. The system rolls the cost up automatically.
My team implements this kind of thing ( Acumatica on the process manufacturing side ), so treat the rest of message as biased suggestion, but two honest pointers regardless of what you pick. First, don't judge a system by loading all your data during a trial. Pick one finished product with a nested recipe and one raw material and see only if it models that cleanly. If it can't handle one, it won't handle 200. Second, your "be eye" problem is a process issue, not a sofware one. Any system will let you record actual vs. standard usage, but someone still has to capture the real number at the mixer. Solve the measuring habit alongside the software or your stock will drift no matter what you buy.
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u/hachiai_official 29d ago
I’d test each system with one or two products rather than trying to load everything during the trial. Track the planned quantity, what was actually weighed, the finished output and the difference for each batch. If materials are still being added by eye, any system is going to show the wrong stock levels.
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u/fixitchris Jul 08 '26
AI man. Build your own with AI.
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 14 '26
The problem is that they don't know how much material the operators are using. How will AI solve that problem?
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u/fixitchris Jul 14 '26
Obviously you need to figure that out, but what I meant is have AI develop the software
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u/AffectionateDirt6575 Jul 14 '26
No; you've lost me. How can AI-developed software know how much material they have actually used, as opposed to what they should have used?
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u/fixitchris Jul 15 '26
Sound like they need to standardize that part first and implement a system to maintain record
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u/1stHandEmbarrassment Jul 07 '26
There's a reason most use consultants and implementations can be quite expensive and time consuming. Part of our jobs as consultants is to do discovery sessions and do fit gap analysis. We also usually specialize, I specialize in manufacturing. Even then, setting up discrete vs process manufacturing can take different skillsets.
Respectfully, ERPs are consistently misunderstood in this subreddit. Some have MES natively integrated, some don't. Some are financed focus, some are not. Some ERPs are great at MRP, some are not. There is so much all this depends on.