ERP for special machine builders
Engineer-to-order design, a bill of materials that keeps changing during build and margin at completion: the ERP built to run the project rather than the production run.
Special machinery
- Project-based management
- Technical configurator
- Evolving bill of materials under revision control
Every machine is a prototype that still has to pay
You are not producing a series: you deliver a single unit designed for one requirement. The bill of materials does not exist at release; it is built while the workshop is already making the first assemblies.
That overlap is what defeats series-oriented ERPs. They assume a definition frozen before release; you buy material against a bill of materials that is still incomplete, and you modify a sub-assembly while it is being machined.
The financial risk is therefore not stock, it is drift. A project sold at fifteen per cent margin can end up at break-even without anyone seeing it coming, for want of comparing committed cost against budget along the way.
Managing work remaining, not work done
The only indicator that protects margin is work remaining. Work done is reassuring; work remaining raises the alarm. It still has to bring together in one place the hours clocked, the purchases committed even when not yet invoiced, the subcontracting and the changes accepted without a variation order.
Then comes compliance: Directive 2006/42/EC requires a technical file, a risk assessment and an EC declaration of conformity. Assembled at the end of the project, that file delays commissioning; built as the work proceeds, it costs almost nothing.
AVIA ERP carries the project end to end: quotation costed by assembly, an evolving bill of materials under revision control, purchases allocated to the project, progress and margin at completion recalculated at every clocking.
What a machine build project expects from its ERP
- Project-based managementBudget by work package, with commitments, clocked hours and subcontracting consolidated. Margin at completion recalculated continuously.
- Technical configuratorBill of materials and routing generated from the options selected at quotation, which removes re-entry between sales and the design office.
- Evolving bill of materials under revision controlBuilt progressively during manufacture, with revisions and controlled issue. Work in progress keeps its definition.
- Allocated purchasing and commitmentsOrders tied to the project, commitment visible from the purchase order rather than the invoice, alerts when a budget line is exceeded.
- Technical file and CE markingRisk assessment, instructions and EC declaration built up as the project proceeds, ready for commissioning.
The direct benefits for your industrial company
Drift shows up during the project
Work remaining flags the loss of margin while there is still time to act, not at close-out.
The design office stops re-entering data
The configurator turns the options sold into a bill of materials and a routing with no manual rework.
Changes stay under control
Every change carries its revision and its issue: the workshop builds the right version.
Commissioning no longer waits for the file
The technical file is built during the project instead of being reconstructed afterwards.
Get a personalised demonstration of our ERP!
Request your demoThey trust us
SEI — Société l'Évolution Industrielle
Industrial machinery and equipment manufacturing.
INTECH
Garment machinery distribution and customisation.
DoorMatic
Industrial doors and automation systems.
The industries AVIA ERP covers
Every industrial sector demands its own rigour. AVIA adapts to your regulatory constraints through focused domain modules.
Industrial diagnostic: forty-five minutes, one real process, a written summary.
Book an industrial diagnostic