This is a guest post written by Will Clevett, If you want to contribute guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines and join our information sharing program.

ERP systems or Enterprise Resource Planning is a key part of business. By keeping track of amounts of product and timelines it can allow businesses to better plan where resources need to be and when, in turn helping a business run more smoothly and cut losses from transportation, delays, storage and the expiry of perishable goods. When looked at like this, ERP systems very much does what it says on the tin, but when you look a bit closer at the inner workings of ERP systems, you can find something on a whole other level.

Applying ERP Systems

The real changes come about when you start applying ERP systems to different industries. For example, in the food industry, almost everything is perishable, some things such as meats and dairy on a very short timescale and even shorter when not kept refrigerated! Attention to these details is vitally important, and having ERP systems in place which can take these into account will greatly reduce the amount of mistakes made in, storage, transportation and delivery time ensuring loss is kept to a minimum.

Even in the fashion and textiles industry, at first glance you might think that this industry doesn’t require anywhere near the same level of granular detail that the food industry would and as a whole it is more slow paced since clothes can’t “go off”. However, having a look at the wholesale fast fashion industry, stock can devalue very fast, in some cases only taking a few weeks to go from having potential value to no value. By having fashion ERP software in place which can reduce your lead times and ensure everybody is getting their information from the same source.

Comparatively in the work wear side of the textiles industry, items of clothing typically have a very long lifecycle spanning years rather than months, thus the requirements of the ERP systems is once again changed. Here ERP systems needs to be able to react to customising the work wear to tailor make the clothing or overalls for the customer. By being able to do this quickly and easily without the aid of designers the delivery time can be significantly reduced and costs are reduced too since less time is spent making the changes! A fantastic boost for productivity.

So even in essentially the same industry, there can be a huge amount of difference in the requirements of an ERP systems, which is why it can be very important when picking a company to help you do ERP. It pays to find somebody specialised in your vertical, since they will know the problems you face and have the solutions ready for you! They might even help you overcome problems you never knew you had !