Summary: Sage 100 engineer-to-order capabilities make it a stronger fit than Sage 50 for the complexity of ETO manufacturing.
Engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing’s one-of-a-kind process can lead to a lot of software challenges and workarounds. Since you’re reading this article comparing software solutions, I’m going to take a wild guess that you’re already struggling with them.
To simplify the ETO process, you’ll need software flexible enough to handle those one-off products. To handle the number of steps involved, you’ll need detailed tracking of what’s happening in your system, preferably in real time. To reduce uncertainty and calm client jitters, you’ll need a way to quickly view project status.
Finally, you’ll need a way to make billing less subjective. For that, you’ll probably want to license extra users, so you can give each department the ability to enter data. This will help you identify the precise moment you’ve achieved a milestone.
So, how do Sage 50 and Sage 100 each handle these needs?
Using Sage 50 for Engineer-to-Order Manufacturing
First, let’s talk about what Sage 50 is. Primarily an accounting software, Sage 50 is built to help startups and small businesses that have light operational needs. While it has basic capabilities for straightforward distribution and project-based work, you’ll likely need to use spreadsheets to track a lot of what you do. However, it will handle your financials easily.
Strengths
- Job costing. Sage 50 provides project job costing capabilities that can help your engineering and design teams track their hours and tasks.
- Keeping details together. The solution’s job-costing functions also make it easy to add specialized material purchases to projects on the fly and track project finances and labor in one place.
Drawbacks
- Data dump. Since project details are tracked together and can span months, steps can get lost. This can make milestone billing hard to determine.
- User limits. The top-tier plan only allows 40 users into your Sage 50 system. If you want more people to access your system, you’ll need a different solution.
Using Sage 100 for Engineer-to-Order Manufacturing
Sage 100 is a full Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution, which means it keeps all your finance, purchasing, engineering, and manufacturing data together in one program. It brings together your front and back offices, so no one at your company has to waste a second on syncing info between spreadsheets and accounting software.
Strengths
· Flexibility. Using Sage 100 with Sage Operations Management lets you set up routing for every step of your unique process, including design, engineering, rework, manufacturing, validation, installation, training, and post-delivery support such as ongoing maintenance.
· Clear status tracking. You can assign steps to specific departments or team members, color-code each step to track its status, and easily identify and bill when a milestone has been reached.
Visibility. With all data stored on the work ticket, you get a 360° view and a single place to look whenever clients, partners, or co-workers request project details, status, or updates.
- More users. Sage 100 lets you add as many users as you need, so your company can grow with ease.
Drawbacks
- Cost. Because it offers more functionality, Sage 100 costs more than Sage 50.
- Complexity. Sage 100 handles complex engineer-to-order manufacturing processes well, but that flexibility makes it harder to learn.
One thing to keep in mind as you consider your options…
Engineer-to-order is an admin-intensive manufacturing method. You know how inefficient it is. A lot of companies still overlook how much time their engineers and designers spend on tasks like data entry or retyping updated specs. Don’t let that oversight fool you.
Since it’s focused on financials instead of operations, Sage 50 is going to require a lot more manual entry for ETO than Sage 100. If you choose Sage 50, you’ll want to factor in extra time spent on admin tasks across the board on every project. With Operations Management in Sage 100, you will have some initial setup work, but after that you can reuse your templates or copy work tickets to save time on subsequent projects.
Plus, since Sage 100 syncs data across modules, you’ll be able to skip duplicate data entry, even with the very first project you set up.
Want a More In-Depth, Personalized Comparison? Ask the ETO Experts.
My team at VBCC has specialized in complex ETO setups for over a decade, and our 15 consecutive years as the #1 Solution Provider of Sage 100 manufacturing software show we are the experts to trust for Sage manufacturing solutions.
When you’re ready to assess software options for your engineer-to-order operations, let us walk you through them.
