Top 10 Manufacturing ERP Systems for 2022

Manufacturing companies always needed far deeper ERP capabilities than other industries due to the large inventory carrying costs, production efficiencies, and regulatory controls. The manufacturing industry is also one of the most competitive. It is competitive as each ERP vendor is trying to grab a piece of the pie of the largest manufacturing ERP systems market.

While most ERP vendors will try to throw the whole manufacturing industry under one bucket, each micro-vertical has a specific need with their ERP. Also, each manufacturing ERP solutions’ design carries the perspective of a particular market segment and industry. Therefore, using a product not designed for your micro-industry will feel unnatural. And it may be the cause for ad-hoc processes and over-customized workflows.

This article outlines the top 10 manufacturing ERP systems for 2022. These systems should be part of your evaluation as they are positioned to be the most successful in 2022. To finalize this list, we have analyzed hundreds of ERP systems and their capabilities through publicly available information, along with our teams’ experience in evaluating these ERP systems for our customers.

The purpose of this article is not to recommend these manufacturing ERP systems. Instead, you must carefully analyze your requirements. And then you should find a suitable product from this list or a list from your industry. 

Criteria:

Overall market share/# of customers

The overall market share of the ERP product is crucial. It is important because it helps us understand how successful the product is in the manufacturing verticals. The more manufacturing market share the product has, the more manufacturing features will be prioritized. They will be prioritized compared to the priorities of other industry verticals. We not only look at the number of installs, but we also look at the size of the customers. The higher the market share of the product, the higher it ranks on our list.

Ownership/funding

Who owns the ERP vendor? Is it a private equity company, a family or a group of families, or a manufacturing company? Private companies are likely to sell the company and the product after 5-10 years. And the product strategy may change depending upon the new owner. The products and companies owned by manufacturing companies or manufacturing-focused PE companies are likely to rank higher on our list. They rank higher due to the alignment of the corporate strategy.

Quality of development: legacy vs. legacy dressed as modern vs. modern UX/cloud-native

How cloud- and mobile-native are the feature sets? The legacy solutions may not have a mobile app for shop-floor data collection. And they might be using a mobile browser. Regardless of the deployment choice, cloud-native functionality will always be superior and more efficient than legacy code. So the more cloud-native are manufacturing capabilities, the higher it ranks on our list.

Community/Ecosystem

Does the vendor and product team primarily collaborate with manufacturing communities and trade associations? What is the concentration of manufacturers in these communities? So we have looked at several places, including social media groups and # of social media followers. We also looked at the engagement level of the communities. The larger the community for a product, the higher it ranks on our list.

Depth of native functionality for specific industries

Does the publisher own the code? Or do they use a white-labeled, third-party add-on to sell a product on their papers? How critical is this add-on to support the manufacturing functionality? Is it just an analysis add-on that might not write anything back to the ERP? Or is the BOM definition supported by an add-on that multiple critical systems will share?

We have considered only the native functionality owned by the publisher for this analysis. The add-ons and vendor relationships pose significant risks for the product’s success and implementation. So the products richer natively rank higher on our list.

Quality of publicly available product documentation

The acquired products built by cash-starved companies tend to have significantly poorer publicly available documentation.

The poor documentation makes it harder for developers and users to use the product. The manufacturing ERP publishers that rely on their internal talent tend to have poorer product documentation. Because the documentation does not go through the same scrutiny. It’s not as scrutinized as it would if the product documentation were part of the release. And it was available publically for the customers and consultants.

The lack of publicly available documentation makes it harder to perform a deeper analysis during ERP selections. The poorer the product documentation, the lower it ranks on our list. 

Manufacturing Product Share and documented commitment of the publisher through financial statements

How committed is the publisher to the manufacturing vertical? Are they trying to position themselves in three verticals than focusing just on manufacturing? The higher the focus on manufacturing, the higher the ERP system ranks on our list.

Ability to natively support diversified business models

The niche products designed for specific manufacturing industries tend to struggle for companies with diversified business models. So the more diverse the product, the higher it ranks on our list.

Acquisition strategy aligned with manufacturing

Did the ERP publisher acquire a company to fill a specific hole with its manufacturing capabilities? The more aligned the acquisitions are with manufacturing, the higher it ranks on our list.

User Reviews

The deeper the reviews by manufacturing companies, the higher the score for a particular product.

Must be an ERP product

There are several edge products that could have a way larger market share than some of these products. And They may be successful in their respective categories, such as Salesforce, Workday, ServiceNow. Ariba, or Coupa. But they don’t have the cross-functional capabilities as of today to be qualified as a manufacturing ERP product. So none of the edge products are qualified to be on this list.

10. Acumatica

Acumatica is a full-suite ERP designed for distribution, manufacturing, and construction industries and is among the three leading cloud-native products. In addition, Acumatica has a manufacturing edition designed to serve the needs of light manufacturing industries. However, it does not have as rich multi-entity functionality and is not as globalized as NetSuite.

So it might not be the best fit or may require an add-on. It may require an add-on if a small manufacturing company has an offshore location in Asia or Mexico. So they might not be able to take advantage of offshore vendors or manufacturing. 

Acumatica integrates with several MES systems but doesn’t offer MES as part of its native suite. Acumatica relies on a third-party add-on for quality and doesn’t own the code for quality management. So the regulated manufacturing industries heavy on quality may have far richer options than Acumatica.

On the other hand, Acumatica natively has a powerful fixed asset module built as part of the product. So it’s a strong fit for companies heavy in assets. Just like Infor and Epicor, Acumatica is designed for mixed-mode manufacturing and can support various business models. Acumatica has a cloud-native mobile app to support warehouse and shop-floor transactions. These capabilities might be a bit trickier with their legacy counterparts. 

It’s ideally suited for businesses that might support several business models such as manufacturing and distribution, construction and manufacturing, manufacturing and DTC, and manufacturing and field service. In addition, its product architecture allows these business models to co-exist as part of the same product offering. For these reasons, Acumatica lands at #10 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

9. NetSuite

Like Acumatica, NetSuite is among the three leading cloud-native products and is better for distribution and light manufacturing. Also, NetSuite has a manufacturing edition that natively offers far richer manufacturing functionality. Unlike Acumatica, NetSuite is a far bigger product due to its rich multi-entity and globalized capabilities. So it may be a better fit for companies that may have a global presence due to its supply chain. 

Like Acumatica, NetSuite has a slightly superior vendor and customer portals than its legacy counterparts. These legacy counterparts could include Infor CloudSuite Industrial and Epicor Kinetic. These portals are helpful to transact with customers or vendors. These vendors typically don’t have the infrastructure for EDI and P2P systems.

While NetSuite is extremely attractive for distribution companies, the manufacturing edition is most expensive. In terms of its capabilities with MES, quality, and fixed assets, both Acumatica and NetSuite are fairly even. Unlike Plex, QAD, IFS, and IQMS, NetSuite is designed for hybrid manufacturing. And it can support various manufacturing product mixes and business models.

NetSuite is ideal for manufacturing companies that prioritize cloud-native features over deep manufacturing capabilities. It might not be ideal, especially in manufacturing verticals that are made-to-order, custom manufacturing, and engineer-to-order. Regulated manufacturing companies involved in complex manufacturing may not be the best fit for NetSuite. For these reasons, NetSuite lands at #9 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

8. Plex

Like IFS, QAD, and IQMS, Plex targets specific manufacturing micro-verticals and ecosystems. For example, Plex started as the ERP system for automotive ecosystems. And it has unique functionality for manufacturers serving in the Toyota ecosystem (i.e., suppliers for Toyota). Each of these ecosystems will have unique business processes, forecasting, collaborative planning, and compliance requirements that other manufacturing ERP systems such as Infor Cloud Suite Industrial or Epicor Kinetic might not be able to support out-of-the-box. 

Unlike Infor LN and IQMS, which offer much deeper functionality for Honda suppliers among the Automotive ERP systems, Plex would not have as deep functionality for the Honda ecosystem. Also, Plex is the only ERP system designed from the perspective of a plant operator. So it has far deeper manufacturing operations capabilities.

But it doesn’t have as deep finance and accounting capabilities for global organizations. And it is probably the reason why companies use Plex in the two-tier setting with SAP or Workday. 

Due to its narrow focus on specific manufacturing verticals, it struggles with hybrid manufacturing capabilities required in the high-mix, project, and custom machinery manufacturing.

However, now that Rockwell Automation owns Plex, Plex is likely to grow deep industry 4.0 functionality that makes it ideally suitable for companies deep in the control systems and care for Industry 4.0 functionality more than the needs of the other departments.

Plex’s design is ideally suitable for manufacturers in the Toyota ecosystem that require deep production capabilities due to the efficiency requirements for automotive suppliers, managing large programs with long product development and R&D cycles in the automotive world. Plex lands at #8 on our top manufacturing ERP systems list for these reasons.

7. Sage X3

Unlike other manufacturing ERP systems, Sage X3 is perhaps the only solution as large as QAD, IFS, or Plex. And it can compete with the likes of the larger ERP systems such as Oracle Cloud ERP, SAP S/4 HANA, or Microsoft Dynamics F&O in the process verticals if they don’t need as globalized and localized capabilities.

The other process manufacturing solutions such as Aptean ProcessPro, Aptean Ross, SYSPRO, and ECi Deacom aren’t as big as Sage X3. So the only other solution that can come close to competing with Sage X3 in some of the process verticals would be IQMS, as its design is ideal for plastics and chemical manufacturing. 

While Sage X3 is not as strong in the discrete capabilities compared to other competing solutions such as Infor CloudSuite Industrial or Epicor Kinetic, Sage X3 may be the only solution that can support the process and discrete manufacturing in one solution. The discrete solutions might claim the process capabilities, but they are not as deep and not as well used or documented in those systems.

Also, the process verticals have fairly unique compliance, traceability, and auditing requirements that a solution designed for process manufacturing, agriculture, and food verticals will only be able to support.

Sage X3’s design is not ideal for discrete manufacturing. Instead, it’s primarily a process manufacturing solution and has deep native capabilities to support process manufacturing, agriculture, and food and beverage. For these reasons, Sage X3 lands at #7 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

6. SAP S/4 HANA

SAP S/4 HANA is one of the largest ERP solutions, just like Oracle Cloud ERP and Microsoft Dynamics F&O. The solution is designed from the perspective of a CFO. Therefore, it is an ideal manufacturing solution when the enterprise-level finance priorities are more important than plant-level needs. 

It is used by one of the largest manufacturing organizations. But they typically use it in the two-tier setting where other specialized manufacturing solutions such as Infor LN, Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Plex, Epicor Kinetic might cover the plant level needs. These specialized solutions will also integrate with the large finance solution for the corporate reporting, control, and financial performance analysis.

SAP S/4 HANA is also one of the most localized and globalized solutions, just like Oracle Cloud ERP and Microsoft Dynamics F&O. But it doesn’t have as strong manufacturing operations capabilities as Oracle Cloud ERP and Microsoft Dynamics F&O natively in the cloud-native solution.

SAP S/4 HANA is ideal for globalized companies in more than 20-30 countries. Or for the companies that might not find other richer globalized manufacturing solutions ideal such as QAD, Infor LN, and Infor CloudSuite Industrial. S/4 HANA is also ideal for companies as large as fortune 1000 organizations or public firms as they have much deeper needs for financial reporting and control. For these reasons, SAP S/4 HANA lands at #6 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

5. Microsoft Dynamics 365 F&O

Like SAP S/4 HANA, Microsoft Dynamics F&O is ahead in its cloud-native operational capabilities for manufacturers, but it may not be as rich in the finance and localization capabilities as SAP S/4 HANA. In addition, unlike SAP S/4 HANA, Microsoft Dynamics F&O is designed from a developer’s perspective, and it might struggle for companies that might have deeper Sarbanes Oxley compliance needs.

Microsoft F&O integrates better with solutions in its portfolio that may require best-of-breed architecture with other Microsoft products such as Microsoft Dynamics CRM, HCM, Customer Data Platform, Industry 4.0 solutions. Microsoft F&O enables database-level replication across its product portfolio and provides master data management capabilities as part of the suite. In addition, the suite powers data warehouse, continuous integration, continuous deployment, and DevOps capabilities.

These development capabilities make it ideal for companies to develop these features on the core Dynamics platform. Microsoft F&O could be a great choice if your company is globalized in 20-30 countries but doesn’t have as stringent public reporting requirements.

And you can’t find another richer manufacturing solution such as QAD, Infor LN, Infor CSI, and Epicor Kinetic that can provide deeper manufacturing functionality out of the box without investing money in development. For these reasons, SAP S/4 HANA lands at #5 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

4. Oracle Cloud ERP

Similar to SAP S/4 HANA and Microsoft Dynamics F&O, Oracle Cloud ERP is ahead in its cloud-native operational capabilities for manufacturers. However, Oracle Cloud ERP is operationally deeper than SAP S/4 HANA and Microsoft Dynamics F&O cloud-native capabilities. Just like SAP S/4 HANA, Oracle Cloud ERP may have deeper best-of-breed capabilities than Microsoft Dynamics F&O, but Oracle cloud ERP has superior native integration of its products compared to SAP S/4 HANA.

Like SAP S/4 HANA and Microsoft Dynamics F&O, Oracle Cloud ERP is a hybrid manufacturing solution and can support various business models for manufacturers. However, since these solutions are designed from the perspective of a large company, the data and information model might feel frightening for smaller companies due to the steps and setup required to operate. For larger companies, it might be OK as they have the complexity with their information architecture, but for smaller companies, they can gain far superior efficiency with slightly smaller solutions.

Oracle Cloud ERP is ideally suited for globalized companies in more than 20-30 countries or is present in countries that might not be supported by richer globalized manufacturing solutions such as QAD, Infor LN, and Infor CloudSuite Industrial. For these reasons, Oracle Cloud ERP lands at #4 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

3. QAD

Unlike other manufacturing ERP systems, QAD is perhaps the only discrete manufacturing ERP solution that can compete with the likes of the larger ERP systems such as Oracle Cloud ERP, SAP S/4 HANA, or Microsoft Dynamics F&O in the discrete verticals. These companies typically need deep multi-entity and globalization capabilities provided by QAD.

QAD is bigger in size than Infor CloudSuite Industrial, and Epicor Kinetic might be similar in size as Infor LN. But QAD takes a very supply chain focus and targets for industries with very deep international supply chain needs and requires joint forecasting capabilities as in the automotive and electronic ecosystems. 

QAD might not have as superior Toyota-specific capabilities as in Plex and not as superior Honda ecosystem capabilities as IQMS and Infor LN. But the solution is more diversified and can be applied to more industries than Infor LN and Plex. On the other hand, QAD will not be an as diverse solution as Infor CloudSuite Industrial and Epicor Kinetic. So it might struggle with companies with diverse business models than supported by QAD. 

QAD is ideally suited for large, global companies that require deep supply chain capabilities and industries that are heavy in the international supply chain and require joint forecasting and vendor collaboration.

2. Epicor Kinetic

Like Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Epicor Kinetic is natively designed for mixed-mode manufacturing and natively supports various business models, product mixes, and manufacturing processes.

Unlike its focused counterparts such as QAD, Plex, and IQMS, Epicor Kinetic is a slightly more diverse solution and offers very deep manufacturing capabilities for many industries. In addition, Epicor Kinetic is not as globalized and localized as QAD, Plex, and IQMS but has far deeper and more diverse operational capabilities natively.

Epicor Kinetic offers much deeper MES, and industry 4.0 capabilities similar to Plex offered as part of the suite and pre-integrated. But Epicor doesn’t own the quality module it provides as part of the suite and relies on a white-labeled product. So Epicor natively would not be as suited for the regulated and complex manufacturing industries.

Also, Epicor was weaker with configure-to-order products, but with its recent acquisition of KBMax, Epicor Kinetic can now support the industries that are heavy in a configuration, such as custom machinery or building materials manufacturing.

Epicor’s designer that is shipped out-of-the-box to customize screens and layout is easier for non-developers to use, but that limits the number of options you will have to customize the product without requiring the help of developers. For these reasons, Epicor Kinetic lands at #2 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

1. Infor CloudSuite Industrial

Like Epicor Kinetic, Infor CloudSuite Industrial is natively designed for mixed-mode manufacturing and can natively support various business models, product mixes, and manufacturing processes.

Unlike its focused counterparts such as QAD, Plex, and IQMS, Infor CSI is a slightly more diverse solution and offers very deep manufacturing capabilities for many industries. In addition, Infor CSI is more globalized than Epicor but not as globalized as the other solutions such as QAD, Infor LN, or Plex. 

Infor CSI natively owns the quality module, and it has deep capabilities for BOM manipulations with a large number of SKUs typically required by the large OEMs. In addition, its field service module is designed from the perspective of large OEMs that can support various stakeholders as they participate in the field service inquiries or support large installation lifecycles.

Infor CSI’s biggest weakness has been with the MES, but with the recent acquisition of Lighthouse Systems, now it’s evenly positioned with Epicor Kinetic in the OT and industry4.0 capabilities. Epicor Kinetic and Infor CSI are equally behind in the cloud, with Infor having a slight edge with its integration capabilities in its portfolio.

Infor has a very deep configurator designed for extremely complex products such as large machinery and electric vehicles. Infor’s designer offered as part of UI is far deeper in its capabilities to customize the products but requires more development expertise than Epicor Kinetic.

Infor CSI is ideal for SMB manufacturing organizations with extremely complex product mix and in quality heavy and regulated industries. For these reasons, Infor CloudSuite Industrial lands at #1 on our list of the top manufacturing ERP systems.

Conclusion

Selecting a manufacturing ERP system is hard. You have several competing priorities and expensive investments that command efficiency with your operations. While your shop floor is likely to dictate the requirements for your ERP, successful implementation requires that the product meets the needs of all departments equally well.

There are several other ERP systems that are highly popular manufacturing ERP systems and might be a great fit for a lot of industries and situations, such as Infor LN, Infor M3, IQMS, Salesforce/Rootstock, SYSPRO, ECi Macola, JobBoss2, Aptean ProcessPro, Aptean Ross, Aptean Made2Manage, ECi Deacom, ECi M1, GlobalShop, ProShop, Odoo, and GeniusERP that might be as strong as these products or maybe stronger for some industries and market segments. 

The only reason they didn’t make it to the list is that either they have too small a market share or are too focused on specific industries. Or they might not have as strong native operational functionality to be a strong contender for any industry.

In closing, if you are responsible for selecting a manufacturing ERP system for your organization, you most certainly want to include some of these solutions as part of your evaluation.

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