New Zealand manufacturers are thinking too big and are installing massive ERP systems when they would be better served by niche applications cautions Auckland’s Software Applications founder Graham Fallwell.Most of these ERP systems are designed for immense and often vertically integrated manufacturers in the Fortune 500 category he warns.  They are simply too big for New Zealand manufacturing distributors. They have to be scaled down and bent to fit the local companies, and in this customisation of the package lies many of the subsequent problems encountered with them.Mr Fallwell puts the blame for this at the door of the finance and accountancy departments which through their standardisation of procedure see their value in financial control.But they are too unwieldy for application on the factory floor, he points out simply because they are not configurable around departures from the factory floor production norm.Manufacturers require software to deal with exception control and factory floor operations in general with a focus on work in progress.Finance and accountancy departments continued to be vulnerable to high pressure sales tactics from ERP companies because such companies told them what they wanted to hear.The company’s wealth though was created on the factory floor, and this where the software applications should be focused.Mr Fallwell’s Software Applications company offers the Preactor APS (for Advanced Planning Scheduling) which operated at factory floor level and provided accurate information on completion times and actual costs.It also allows factory floor staff to handle production schedule exceptions on a drag-and-drop basis and without the delays of data re-entry.

From the MSCnewsWire reporters' desk for Software Applications Ltd