How are you managing capital or client projects in your ERP without losing visibility?

[A-A-Ron]

I’ve been working with a few project-heavy organizations (construction, ETO manufacturing, infrastructure) that rely on ERP systems to manage operations, but when it comes to complex, project-based work, things often break down.


Some common patterns:

• Limited visibility across phases, cost centers, or change orders
• Manual workarounds in Excel or disconnected tools
• ERP setups that don’t align well with project delivery or job costing models

I’m curious — how are others approaching this?
Are you customizing your ERP? Building shadow systems? Using add-ons or workflows to close the gaps?


Would love to hear what’s working — or not — in real-world environments.

 

[Gr8blu]

To some extent, all the options amount to "customizing the ERP".
The biggest difficulties I see are:
A) project(s) definition is lacking so that materials and resources can be tracked appropriately.
B) not adjusting the project plan when new information is developed (e.g. the material now has a 6-month purchase to delivery cycle instead of the originally assumed 3-week window, or a failure of a prototype at one step causes a backlog at a step further down the line).

All ERP use should to follow the same basic steps:
1) Define the end goal, and a timeline to execute.
2) Break down the goal into manageable steps - which may be sequential, parallel, or a combination of both.
3) Break down the steps into smaller chunks - think of them as the equivalent of work instructions,
4) Repeat 3) for each of the first breakdowns until at the lowest level - which basically equates to the point where a deliverable can be well-defined.
5) Figure out the timeline for all the increments arrived at in 2), 3) and 4). Review - to make sure they don't exceed the original timeline from 1). If they do, adjust either the series-parallel nature of the work or the original project duration.
6) Apply the appropriate material and manpower at each stage so that the work can be completed as scheduled. Adjust individual task loading and/or material acquisition times as required to keep the project as a whole up to date.
7) Continually (or at least regularly) review the project plan throughout the life of the project to ensure everything is still on track.
8) Eventually close out the project as complete - and move on to the next one.

 

[CWB1]

You're using the wrong tool for the purpose. ERP systems arent designed to manage engineering, costing, or other project-based work, that's the purpose of PLM.

Project workflows and other needs vary a LOT by user and project. An engineer designing a new part will usually create multiple versions in CAD before feeding a single print to purchasing for quoting. OTOH, a purchasing agent re-quoting production parts usually has to feed multiple print markups and deviation requests from suppliers to engineering for approval before considering the cost. Engineering, purchasing, and suppliers are involved in both projects, but the workflows, documentation, and other needs are very different.

PLM systems have very flexible project management tools/databases to accommodate these differences. They allow individual teams/users to set up and track unique workflows/processes/phases/etc tailored to their specific project, consider many potential revisions/versions/options before a production release, and safely store mountains of partial/inaccurate/low-quality data that differs by project and phase. Once the project is production released, only necessary portions (not all) of the project's final data is input into ERP.

ERP systems OTOH are rigidly structured with rules to prevent missing/bad/excess data or other issues from disrupting production/operations. You want rules forcing employees to input specific documents/data to ensure materials are bought and production/operations happen. You want rules preventing employees from slowing the ERP system down by polluting it with mountains of unnecessary data like project plans, maintenance manuals, and unreleased CAD/prints/costs/etc. You want rules to keep some data out of ERP to protect IP, bc ERP needs to be accessible to a wide variety of low-level shop employees and often suppliers as well. And you want rules for many other reasons....