5 practical fixes to reduce ERP downtime today

Think of shop floor downtime and your mind probably turns to machines breaking down or delays caused by staffing or parts/materials shortages. When a machine fails or production grinds to a halt, you see and hear the impact immediately. But what about ‘digital downtime’ caused by poorly-performing ERP software?

The first point to note is that digital downtime isn’t limited to software glitches or outages. It also happens when it is under-used, bypassed completely or contains limited or inaccurate data. Even if there’s nothing ‘wrong’ with the software itself, poor user-experiences or lack of functionality can push teams back to spreadsheets, making it hard to manage complex operations.

Bottlenecks in scheduling. Too much inventory sitting in the warehouse. Customer dissatisfaction. All are examples of the hidden costs of an ERP that isn’t working – and that’s not even counting the ongoing subscription, support from your vendor and customisations.

Without business analysts, decision-makers in small and mid-sized manufacturing businesses may have no idea – or no evidence – that their ERP is to blame for this untracked downtime. It’s one thing to suspect it, but pulling the plug on your existing system can be just as damaging, especially if you jump to a new one that doesn’t fit your requirements either.

To find out whether or not your current ERP is working, we’ve compiled five practical tips to get it back on track, or move to one that’s more suitable for your business.

Key takeaways

• You don’t necessarily think of an ERP being the cause of downtime – but it can lead to lost hours in the same way broken machines or staff shortages can.
• Jumping in and changing your ERP can be just as damaging as continuing with an existing one. You first need to audit your existing software to identify the strengths and shortfalls. 
• Don’t try to tackle everything at once. Start with the challenges and consider how the technology could be used to solve them, building use-cases and reducing risk.
• Develop skills and confidence within your teams. Identify the gaps and deliver consistent training and refreshers to ensure people get the maximum use from the ERP.

No matter how confident you are that your ERP is failing, you need insights to back it up – and make a business case for a rescue or RFP. Late delivery, stock-outs and staff not trusting the data are common signs, but there may be others you could have missed, which impact productivity and performance. Before looking for quick-fixes, take a step back and audit your existing system carefully. 

Our ERP Rescue Audit helps you understand your current situation quickly. Covering four core areas (financial performance/timelines, operational efficiency, vendor support, and scalability and integration), it can be completed in 20 minutes. You’ll receive a diagnostic score based on your responses within 24 hours, helping you to identify pockets of inefficiency and downtime. 

Alongside your audit, it’s important to take a look at how staff are currently using the software (or not) by checking log-ins and activity reports. If you spot any gaps, it’s likely they are using their own methods, including spreadsheets, email, chat, or whiteboard. An ERP should reduce complexity – so if they’re resistant, it’s time to ask why.

Anonymous staff surveys and small, judgement-free focus groups can help you understand what the barriers are. It could be lack of training or confidence, or it might be down to issues with the software itself. Often generic software doesn’t match the specific workflows of discrete manufacturers, or it might just be clunky and hard to navigate. Every hour spent managing spreadsheets is downtime that could easily be reclaimed if teams had the right ERP. This could be as much as 600 hours every year, based on saving 30 minutes of admin time each day across six members of staff.

If decision-makers don’t trust the data within their ERP, then they’ll quickly lose faith. Duplicate supplier and customer records, inaccurate parts descriptions, and even inconsistencies in how units of weight or quantity are represented can all lead to unreliable outputs. When experienced operators see them, they’ll need to interrogate the data to get a more realistic answer, or revert to manual workarounds. Either way, they’ll lose time that could have been better spent elsewhere.

An ERP standardises any data users input, setting a new benchmark, but you can also clean up your legacy data before importing it, for example, by deleting duplicate or outdated records within spreadsheets. You could also use a company-approved AI tool such as Copilot or Claude to ensure that dates, units and other information is displayed consistently.

Adopting a problem-first approach can help break down the overwhelming task of digitising your operations, especially during the implementation phase. Trying to do everything at once usually leads to confusion, overwhelm and disengagement.

Instead of trying to engineer the software into your operations, start with the everyday challenges your teams are facing. What’s causing the most stress, the biggest bottlenecks and what’s hitting your targets hardest? By starting with the technology, you risk scope creep during implementation and costly customisations later down the line.

Establishing real, high-value use cases – such as improving inventory accuracy or optimising scheduling – allows you to make small but meaningful operational changes. You also minimise the risk and secure buy-in from your teams along the way.

Speaking to your teams will tell you how confident they are using the system and where there could be skills gaps. However, investing in training and refreshers for everyone ensures competencies aren’t confined to a small group (such as IT), nor lost after the implementation phase.

A good ERP is easy-to-use but your vendor can support businesses with dedicated training to get employees up to speed and show them how new features work. They can also show you how to configure features to your workflows, so you don’t have to customise. Internally, project managers and champions will continue to share knowledge and best practices, and create a forum where people can ask questions and show others what they’ve done.

Ultimately, an ERP removes the problem of tribal knowledge, providing visibility across the business, so teams don’t lose time if their colleague who has all the information in their head is away.