Issue 01
The ERP cannot talk to new suppliers
Legacy EDI setups are fragile. Every new supplier becomes a small project, and any move towards API-based ordering or modern partner integration feels harder than it should.
Manufacturing: Legacy ERP & Shop-Floor Modernisation
Modernise the ERP, production planning, and shop-floor systems your factory depends on, without putting daily operations at unnecessary risk.
The manufacturing systems we work with.
Manufacturing businesses rarely run on one clean, modern platform. What we usually see is a mix of ageing ERP software, production planning tools, supplier integrations, warehouse processes, spreadsheets, and workarounds built up over years.
Legacy ERP systems
Sage 200, Sage 1000, older SAP R/3, Epicor, SYSPRO, and custom-built platforms.
Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES)
Used to track work in progress, quality events, machine output, and shop-floor activity.
Production scheduling & planning
MRP and MRP II environments with years of accumulated rules and exceptions.
Bill of Materials (BOM) management
Multi-level structures, historical exceptions, and product variants embedded deep inside the ERP.
Inventory & warehouse systems
Stock locations, movements, batch records, and fulfilment processes.
Supplier EDI integration layers
Connections to customers, suppliers, and logistics partners — often brittle and poorly understood.
Quality & compliance tracking
ISO 9001-related records and sector-specific controls baked into daily operations.
Shop-floor data collection
Barcode scanners, RFID devices, manual entry stations, and operator terminals.
Spreadsheet-driven planning
Where the real day-to-day scheduling logic sits outside the official system. Familiar ground.
Common legacy problems in manufacturing.
The system still functions well enough to avoid immediate replacement, though every year it becomes harder to change, harder to trust, and more expensive to support. For a finance-side view of what that drift adds up to, see legacy system TCO.
Does any of this sound familiar?
Issue 02
Reports are slow and hard to produce
The data exists, though getting it into a usable form takes manual exports, spreadsheet work, and hours of manipulation. Production, inventory, margin, and scrap should be visible quickly — in legacy environments they are buried.
Issue 03
Only one person knows how it works
Many manufacturers are one retirement, resignation, or illness away from losing critical system knowledge. Documentation is partial or outdated, and troubleshooting starts with guesswork.
Issue 04
A new ERP has been quoted at half a million
Enterprise replacement programmes often run £300K to £1M+. That is hard to justify for a business turning £5M to £50M a year, especially when the existing system still contains valuable logic.
Issue 05
Production downtime isn't an option
A migration that shuts down production is not a serious option. Whether your line runs weekday shifts or close to 24/7, there is no easy window for a risky switchover.
Issue 06
Staff work around the system, not with it
Double-keying, manual checks, paper alongside digital processes, extra spreadsheets, and one-off fixes become part of daily operations. The system was meant to reduce friction; now it creates it.
Our approach in manufacturing.
Our preferred route is incremental modernisation. In manufacturing, that often means modernising one operational area at a time — inventory first, then BOM management, then scheduling, then reporting, or another sequence based on where the biggest constraint sits. When incremental work is not realistic, we say so directly and plan a switchover around your production calendar.
Working software appears in stages, your team validates it against real operations, and the business keeps running while the architecture improves underneath. No long wait for a single risky release.
What you get.
The scope is broad enough to show how risk accumulates across systems, infrastructure, and day-to-day operating practices.
A modern ERP that fits your business
Not a generic application forced awkwardly onto your production process. A modern system shaped around how your manufacturing business actually works, with logic preserved and the interface improved.
Supplier & customer integration
Modern APIs and cleaner integration layers. Supplier onboarding that used to take weeks can often be reduced dramatically once the architecture is modernised.
Compliance & traceability by design
Audit trails, batch tracking, quality records, and operational history built into the system cleanly — supporting ISO 9001 and sector-specific requirements without parallel spreadsheets.
Shop-floor hardware kept where possible
Modernised applications are typically web-based and responsive, so tablets, PCs, operator terminals, and scanners can often work through a browser or a light integration layer.
Fewer spreadsheet workarounds
Processes that currently sit in Excel and shared folders are absorbed into the application. A clearer single source of truth for planning, costing, stock, and production control.
A better foundation from day one
Responsive design, authentication, CI/CD pipeline, demo environment, test data framework, and support for internationalisation — including multi-language or multi-currency where relevant.
Other industries we work with
Click any tile to take a closer look at the sectors we modernise.
Named systems
Named legacy systems we help manufacturers modernise
Most manufacturing ERPs we assess sit on an older database engine that quietly determines what is and isn't safe to change. This is the most common one we see.
Ready for the next stage of production?
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll talk through your manufacturing systems, your operational pain points, and what a realistic modernisation path looks like.