After so much effort and money, ERP is deployed. It usually starts hard and improves over time. Then for some reason, something happens and the opposite process starts. ERP does not respond as expected and people begin to abandon some modules. There are many reasons for this. Let´s list some to respond “what makes ERP fail”.

#1 People turnover

Not well onboarding process drives new people to not understand what have to do. Then they usually start to do things out of the system. Mainly, using their own spreadsheets. It does not only have an impact on their function but also it can potentially harm and corrupt other process and teams.

#2 Imposed customization

It is mainly related to the fact that a company usually thinks that ERP will replace all other systems. No, it will never do it. It should be considered the compulsory repository of data, with many workflows. Not more than this. For example, production scheduling is a hard task for ERP to treat. Therefore exists some systems to solve this problem. It is not a feature that should be embedded inside it.

#3 Lack of discipline in the use

If people do not use the system according to what was designed it will impact hugely its use. It means if people do not close orders, cancel what must be canceled, input what has changed, the result is enormous messy data driving into an ineffective system.

#4 Processes lousy tied

The problem here is that many deployments did not tie the process properly. Then it allows users to not do the process as it was designed. It must be designed to lock the other process immediately, giving the feedback ASAP.

#5 Too big and complex to work

Keep it as simple as possible. Make everybody understand how it works and the importance to use it correctly. Make them understand the consequences of misuse. Lack of vision always drives the system to collapse.

Conclusion

All items listed here do not have any connection with the quality of the ERP deployed. All of them is actually internal process and decisions. But if the company is a manufacturer, Production and Sales Planning and also a Production Scheduling system can help a lot to tie processes and give immediate feedback. It shows almost online what is wrong. Using such a system reduces complexity, and customization improves workflow and imposes discipline. Them it should be a must-have item and can help a lot to preserve ERP healthy. Then we hope we responded “what makes ERP fail”.