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Improve Manufacturing - maybe even rewriting the module

Well lets start by addressing the elephant in the room, the manufacturing module really should have been "spruced up" and improved, this is long overdue.  A lot of customers are having to pay extra to move to 3rd party providers providing manufacturing bolt ons because just applying the odd sticking plaster on Manufacturing every so often isnt really enough.  There are countless improvements that can be done, and a number of years ago it was a public secret by some product managers (who said this to numerous partners) that they were hoping that the module could be improved/rewritten.  Its probably overdue and with sufficient improvement, customers could save money from having to purchase 3rd party addons.

Gary Butler_1
  • in reply to Ian Makinson

    yes thats the problem, looking from the customers side where they are usually being dissuaded from using the built in Manufacturing program for a 3rd party package.  It might not be able to be rewritten but maybe over 3-4 years improving bits per year (planning, estimating, MRP, Works Orders, etc) if not rewriting it. 

  • in reply to Gary McKnight

    Oh i know, I used to work at Sage. I'm just thinking from the customers side, to either start on the built in Manufacturing, get frustrated, then pay and move to Sicon or go straight to it.  If you think of all the new features being added today, they are really just putting  a plaster on the manufacturing side just to keep it ticking over. 

  • the availability of developer / ISV add-on modules means that all of the functionality historically dreamt of is a reality today - app based shop floor data capture; stock allocation and issue to operations rather than works orders; MRP based upon minimum levels (calculated based upon historical usage); drillable profit analysis and job costing; barcode scanning; document attachment and distribution; the list goes on.

  • Given that the manufacturing offering within the core product suite is / was a product acquisition, a significant amount of time, effort, and investment would be needed to make any significant developments to this area of the solution. Indeed, other areas of the core product would need redevelopment to accommodate what would even appear to be a simple improvement to MRP.

  • For this to happen Sage would have to drop the 3 releases per year as it would require some in depth planning & more importantly testing - I'm definitely in favor of them doing just that, works orders & MRP are so much in need of a rewrite but that would be a very large task

*Community Hub is the new name for Sage City