Hello everybody,

problem here! I am asked to design an ERP like system in Access for a starting manufacturing company. The reason that an ERP system is not an option for the company where I work for is that the directors have heard to many horror stories about (the implementation of) ERP systems. Therefor they want the system to be set up in Access. My job is to find out what the company wants and then to hand these documents to a company that will programm the requirements in Access.

An overview of the requirements so far: Forecasting, A master prouction schedule, A week plan, an accounting module, a Quoting module, creation of BOM and BOL and this is just the beginning!!!

I have spoken with access programmers and of course they come of with a quote that is rather attractive. But I'm sure the cost will exceed this number big time once we start. Does anyone have experience with what I'm facing(tips please!!!!) and what price am I looking at? Is this $ 5,000-15,000 or more around $ 50,000 or even $ 100,000.

Thanks a lot!!!

for a start this is definitely the wrong forum to be asking.

This is a forum for webmasters, while there will be some people with experience of this kind of project they will be the minority.

I would honestly suggest your directors "get a clue". If they think that setting up a dedicated ERP system would be fraught with problems and they think something programmed in Access would be simpler or more successful !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ERP systems fail to satisfy clients because genrally the client has no idea what they want from a such a system. Usually they have a paper based system (that doesn't work successfully) that they want to transfer to a computer based system then wonder why that doesn't work either.

Yes, whatever price anyone quotes you, will probably triple once the project starts. Simply because the directors will start to add more and more, then change their minds on what they want.
It's called "feature creep"

The first thing you need is a project manager with experience of ERP systems who can guide the project and ensure that only the features required are built in initially.

Good Luck!

The cost of developing a complete ERP system in Access depends on what your management's expectations are. But developing any level of ERP in Access will not only cost money and time, there are other reasons why companies rarely do this. Recognize that your firm will be 1) the only company with fuctionality ideas for the development, 2) the only company de-bugging problems, 3) manuals will be written by you, etc.

Your management is justified in being concerned about off the shelf ERP systems. 73% of all manufacturers do not like the system they have now. But no one can paint the entire industry with the same brush. They may want to reconsider their options.

I have worked with a package called VISUAL Enterprise for about 10 years. Suprizingly, their customer based has a very high percent of success. I just attended their User Conference in April, which normally brings out all the unhappy complainers. Yet the customer satisfaction was through the roof.

If you would like to learn more about this system, please let me know. Below is an article I wrote for APICS. I hope you find it useful.

When deciding on a software system, you want the most reliable system that is most suited to your needs.

A search may begin with existing, off-the-shelf solutions. These systems are the easiest to install and implement. Having been developed with the experience of many companies before you, and the benefit of continual user feedback (improved functionality suggestions). Whereas the custom systems’ potential for new ideas and feedback comes from only one source, you.

In a custom system, your company is the only source of revenue. Since you must pay for all development costs, you will be carrying the costs of all enhancements, upgrades, new documentation and debugging, rather than sharing the costs across a number of companies.

User Groups are quite common with off-the-shelf systems. These can be useful, getting together with other companies to share ideas of how each uses the system.

Custom programmers write exactly what you ask for, to the best of their ability. They do not know your business or have the ability to anticipate any unforeseen requirements other than the specifications that have been provided to them. This places all the responsibility on you to ensure that what you have explained to the programmer, completely defines all your needs.

Sometimes custom software seems less expensive than an off-the-shelf package. After all, the programmer has provided a firm price and an impressive document describing the program to be written “to your exact specifications”. However, this firm price and impressive document is the programmer’s interpretation of your explanation of your requirements. As you use the custom application and realize there are other needed function’s that hadn’t occurred to you previously, further charges will be incurred. These continual “enhancements” can add up to be significant, un-anticipated costs. And besides, is your company in


business to develop software or are they in business to manufacture products?

Millions of dollars have been spent on developing off-the-shelf solutions. A custom system could not have the same capability without similar costs. Typical short cuts that custom programmers use to save costs include, limited debugging (the end user does the debugging), limited support documentation (manuals are either nor provided or are poorly written) and lack of future support (available only through the programmer if that person even remains available).

One of the latest trends in software development is the use of programming tools such as VISUAL Basic. This tool is great for developing specific unique functions, but may not be robust enough to create an enterprise wide, fully integrated system.

If you are unable to locate a system off-the-shelf that addresses your critical, unique requirements, a custom solution may be your only alternative. However if you choose this route, get as much technical expertise advise as you can, before contracting with the programmer.

As a final argument in favor of choosing an off-the-shelf solution over a custom written one, remember the logic of volume manufacturing. Which is more expensive and labor intensive? Building a custom widget once or when mass producing a unit a thousand times?

Wow!!! Using MS Access as a ERP database!! Think twice. Personally, I feel that the performance of MS Access is not very reliable especially when you get more and more data in your database. If your expected data volumn will grow very fast, then you better start will MS SQL, Oracle, or MySQL. I won't suggest MS Access for the long run. This is only my personal opinion.

* shudders *

First-off, people who use terms like ERP, CRM, BOL, BOM, and other such BS should STFU. Seriously, corporate whore abbreviations are annoying and used by idiots to make themselves sound smarter.

Having said all of that, I tend to agree with the directors on this. The problem with any third-party software that is supposed to provide a beginning-to-end solution is that it is built for general purposes, and not for the specific needs of the business. It also has a tendency to be very rigid and difficult to customize.

It's sort of like all of these sites that use phpNuke and osCommerce for things which they were never intended to be used for.

Now...as far as getting that built, I agree with everything that was said here.

- SQL Server database would be a must-have if it's going to grow in any way, shape, or form.

- Your costs will vary greatly depending on what you want. The best thing you could do is take the scenario from raw material purchase to distribution and map it out from beginning to end (a Word outline doc is great for things like that, or even a Visio flowchart.) $50,000 - $100,000 is high, but not necessarily out of line for a custom solution if it works right and is built properly. A lot of the industry specific solutions that are out there tend to cost between $20,000-$30,000, and they're usually outdated pieces of crap.

- If you use web pages for your front end, you could use anything you wanted for your back end. This may open up the door to more quotes and lower costs. And this is a webmaster board, so this makes the topic relevant.

I wouldn't recommend access for ANY live production project and specially for big ERP system. If you want to go with custom build solution you can design web based system with MS SQL/.NET/Coldfusion/Oracle/Java/PHP in any combination