Industrial manufacturing

Software for industrial manufacturing

What a production system has to cover in a factory, how it connects to the warehouse and the ERP, and where to start when paper forms, spreadsheets and the invoicing software no longer keep up with the shop floor.

The problem

Where the flow breaks in a factory

In most factories, the invoicing software or the ERP knows what was bought and what was sold. In between, on the shop floor, information travels on paper, in spreadsheets and in people’s heads.

Production orders in spreadsheets

What gets made today, in what quantity and on which line is decided in a file passed around by e-mail. The right version is the one on the supervisor’s computer.

Consumption declared, not measured

Material issues are booked at the end of the day or month, from the theoretical recipe. Differences from what was really used show up only at stock-taking.

Stock that does not match

Raw material taken from the warehouse and not used comes back without a document, and the stock in the system is no longer what is on the floor.

Batches lost along the way

You know which raw material batch entered the warehouse, but not which finished batch it ended up in. When a complaint arrives, the answer takes days.

Nonconformities found late

An in-process check written on a sheet stops nothing. The problem shows up in the finished product or at the customer.

Planning by hand

The plan starts from orders but sees neither the real raw material stock nor the busy machines, so it is redone every day.

Functions

What production software covers

Not every factory needs all of the following from day one. What matters is that warehouse, production and quality work on the same data, so information is no longer copied from one place to another.

Recipes and bills of materials

The recipe or bill of materials (BOM) is versioned: a change does not alter what was already made, and the new version goes live after approval.

Production orders

You release an order for a quantity, the material requirement is calculated from the recipe and reserved on available batches, not on a theoretical total.

Actual consumption, by scanning

The operator scans the raw material batch or container when using it, and the consumption is linked to the production order at that moment.

In-process checks

Checks between stages have defined limits. A result outside them is visible immediately and can stop the next stage.

Finished goods and labels

The finished product gets a batch and labels and goes into stock at a location, keeping the link to the raw materials it was made from.

Reconciliation

When an order closes you see how much was issued to the line, consumed, returned to the warehouse and lost, against the set thresholds.

Planning on real stock

The plan starts from sales orders and real stock and shows in advance whether raw materials will be enough for what you have to make.

Reports from real data

Yield, losses and consumption come from records made on the shop floor, not from data filled in afterwards.

Roles and history

Everyone sees what they need, and every action stays in the log: who, what, when and where.

Who does what

ERP, MES and WMS: who does what

Confusion is common when choosing: the ERP promises production, the WMS promises traceability. Each has a clear role, and in a factory they need each other.

	ERP	Production software (MES)	Warehouse software (WMS)
The question it answers	What did we buy, what did we sell, what does it cost?	What is being made now, from what and how?	Where is the material and who moved it?
Main data	orders, invoices, stock value, cost	production orders, consumption by batch, checks	stock by location, batches, movements
Who works in it	the office: sales, purchasing, finance	supervisors, operators, quality	warehouse staff
Rhythm	daily, monthly	at every operation	at every scan

You do not need three separate programs. What matters is that data flows without being typed in twice: the ERP sends items and orders, while production and the warehouse send back consumption, finished goods and movements. More on the difference between MES and ERP and on what a WMS does.

Traceability

Traceability: from the raw material batch to the customer

Traceability is not a report for the auditor. It is being able to answer two questions in a few minutes.

Backward: What was it made from?

From a finished batch you see the raw material batches, operators, machines and checks of the production order.

Forward: Where did it go?

From a raw material batch you see which finished products it went into and which customers received them, with quantities.

For the chain to hold, three things must be true: every batch has a coded label, consumption is scanned when it happens, and the finished product gets its batch when it is declared. If one is missing, the chain breaks exactly there. The basic terms are explained in the glossary.

The DataFlows approach

How we approach a factory

We do not sell a boxed production module. We start with the warehouse, because every batch starts and ends there, and build production around the factory’s own process, on the DataFlows platform.

The warehouse first

Raw materials and finished goods are managed by location, with batches and scanning, in DataFlows Depo. Once the stock in the system matches the floor, production has something to rely on.

Production, on your process

Recipes, production orders, consumption by batch, checks and reconciliation are built on the same platform that runs our pharmaceutical manufacturing system, starting from existing components. Whatever is specific to your factory is developed as a custom application.

Documents and approvals

Work sheets, reports and internal approvals are generated from data already entered, with DataFlows Docu, instead of being filled in separately.

If you make medicines, cosmetics or food supplements, the requirements are different. We wrote separately about production software for the pharmaceutical industry.

Implementation

The stages of a project

Analysis on the shop floor

We follow one batch from raw material receipt to delivery and note where information gets lost.

Warehouse and labels

We code the locations, label the batches and start the warehouse on scanning.

The ERP link

Items, orders and stock come from the ERP, first in a test run.

A pilot line

Production starts on a single line or department, with real operators and real orders.

Roll-out

After adjustments, we extend to the other lines and add planning and reports.

Duration depends on the number of products, lines and links to other software. We estimate it in writing after the analysis.

Preparation

What to prepare before the first meeting

Five things that shorten the analysis

the list of products and recipes, even in a spreadsheet;
how raw material and finished goods batches are coded today;
the path of a batch: who records what, on what, and where the paper ends up;
which ERP or invoicing software you use and whether it allows integrations (API, data export);
three questions that are hard to answer today, for example: which batch was the complained product made from?

Frequently asked questions

No. Production software connects to the existing ERP: it takes items and orders and sends back consumption and finished goods. Fiscal documents stay in the ERP.

Yes, and that is usually the right way. A scanned warehouse and one pilot line quickly show where the real problems are, before you extend.

Tablets, Android phones or scanner terminals, straight from the browser. Where the signal is weak, we recommend WiFi coverage of the hall first.

Label printers are integrated. A direct link to scales is in development, and for machines we decide at the analysis, depending on what each piece of equipment allows. Until then, the quantity is entered after scanning the material, with a tolerance check.

You print labels from the system, per batch or per container. Supplier barcodes are linked to items at the first receipt.

On the factory’s own server, inside its network, or in the DataFlows cloud, on a dedicated instance.

Let’s talk about your process

Choose from many ready-to-run solutions or tell us about your specific scenario

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