iDempiere ERP at a manufacturing SME: production, lots and quality integrated

The company used a management system focused on administration and sales, while accounting was handled by an external consultant.

The need was to move beyond a mainly administrative and commercial system to an ERP that also supports production, planning, warehouse, lot traceability, quality, cost accounting and management control.

The project also aimed to bring accounting progressively in-house, leaving tax matters to the external consultant.

1. 01

   Integrating administration and production

   Not software for a single function, but a system connecting sales, purchasing, warehouse, production and accounting.

2. 02

   Complex production cycle

   Each product goes through several operations and requires coordination of operators, materials, machines, moulds and outsourced work.

3. 03

   Material traceability

   Each roll of technical material must be identified by lot, with its characteristics and certificates, and tracked throughout production.

4. 04

   Controlled storage

   Rolls are kept in cold rooms: removals and returns must be recorded, taking time spent outside the controlled environment into account for expiry management.

5. 05

   Quality within the process

   Checks cover acceptance of raw materials, specific production stages and the finished product, and must be part of the ERP flow.

6. 06

   Accounting in-house

   The new ERP had to support bringing accounting in-house, integrating it with data generated by other processes.

Labinf Sistemi designed the introduction of iDempiere as the company’s new ERP, covering software, configuration, parameter setup, data migration, training and go-live support.

The project is proceeding in phases, with dedicated contacts for accounting, sales and purchasing, the technical office, production, warehouse, logistics, quality and management control. Touch terminals, barcode readers and industrial label printers support day-to-day operations.

Areas of the iDempiere ERP management system

• General accounting
• Sales and purchasing cycles
• Logistics and warehouse
• Production and scheduling
• Bills of materials and routings
• Outsourced operations and MRP
• Integrated quality
• Cost accounting
• Management control
• Approval workflows and roles
• EDI and integrations

Data from the previous system was imported and validated, with customers, suppliers, products, chart of accounts, bills of materials and routings handled differently according to volume and complexity. In March 2025 the first data was imported and training sessions began on general use, the sales cycle and accounting, on a cloud-based iDempiere production environment.

Approval workflows, for master data, purchase orders and requisitions, order confirmations and quality, support multi-level approvals, assigned owners, delegation and internal or e-mail notifications. The project continues area by area, mainly on production, quality and logistics.

Production is managed through production orders and successive operations. Each progress entry, recorded by scanning the barcodes of operator, order and operation, identifies materials, lot, mould and start and end times.

For technical materials, a lot is created for each roll, labelled with a barcode and recording dimensions, production date, expiry date, degradation time and certificate. When material leaves the cold room, the system records the data needed to monitor exposure and update the expiry date.

Quality checks, based on dedicated checklists, take place at goods receipt, during production and at final release of the finished product. Incoming goods remain in a dedicated area until they pass inspection. iDempiere manages internal and external warehouses, locations, picking, lots and serial numbers, stocktaking and materials held by subcontractors.

Cost accounting and management control turn operational data into an economic view.

• Budget by cost centre and job
• Budget versus actual variances
• Machine and resource costs
• Outsourced operations and materials
• Production overheads
• Product cost via BOM explosion

• One ERP for administration and production
• Sales, purchasing, production and warehouse integrated
• Structured management of bills of materials and routings
• Traceability of lots, materials and products
• Barcode-based production progress tracking
• Quality checks built into processes
• Production linked to cost accounting
• Product cost analysis
• Configurable workflows and roles
• Cloud environment for authorised users

A common information base for operational and economic control, adaptable to specific production processes.