ERP for a 20-person manufacturing company: what you actually need

• Sales – quotes and order confirmations from one price list
• Purchasing – POs triggered by real demand, not gut feel
• Inventory – live stock, locations, traceability where required
• Manufacturing – bills of materials, work orders, job costing
• Invoicing / accounting – or a clean export to your accountant
• Contacts/CRM – one customer record everything hangs on
• Reporting – margin per order, stock value, open jobs

• Advanced scheduling / APS – a whiteboard beats a bad algorithm at this size
• Quality module – start with checklists on work orders
• PLM – version your BoMs first, formalise later
• Shop-floor tablets – month two, not day one
• Barcode everywhere – pilot one warehouse process first
• Custom dashboards – you don't know your KPIs until you run standard ones

Do we even need an ERP at 20 people?

The trigger isn't headcount – it's re-typing. When orders, stock and production live in separate files and someone manually copies between them, you're paying an invisible clerk and getting planning errors for free: missed deliveries, surprise stockouts, jobs whose real cost nobody knows. When those errors cost more per year than a system, the answer is yes.

Why do small manufacturers pick Odoo?

Because the manufacturing module is genuinely usable at this scale – BoMs, work orders, job costing without an army of consultants – and because Community edition removes per-user licences entirely, which matters when every hire adds a seat. The trade-off: you need a competent partner, since there's no vendor holding your hand.

What's the most common project killer?

Trying to reproduce the old chaos in the new system – custom fields for every habit, imports of ten years of dirty history, exceptions coded for processes that should simply change. The second killer: nobody owns data cleanup. Products and BoMs need one accountable person on your side, not ours.

How do we choose between vendors?

Make each candidate demo your flow – one real product, its BoM, a quote-to-invoice pass – not their standard pitch. Ask what they'd cut from your requirements list; a partner who deletes scope is worth more than one who prices everything. We run this selection as a paid, vendor-neutral engagement. ERP selection consulting →