Your ERP Thinks You’re an OEM. You’re Not.

If you run an EMS company, especially a high-mix, low-volume one, chances are your ERP doesn’t really get you.

Most ERPs were built for OEMs. Companies that build the same thing, over and over, with deeply structured, rigid data. That works when you’re producing millions of the same part every year.

But in EMS, you might quote a 200-line BOM on Monday, build it once, and never see it again. In that world, speed and flexibility matter more than perfect data structures.

Chasing perfect master data isn’t just a waste of time. It can actually be a disadvantage.

Where It Hurts

Here’s what usually causes the most pain:

• Part numbers: Creating a new part master takes minutes. Multiply that by 100 lines and you’ve burned a whole day before production even starts.
• Alternates: Trying to manage customer-specific substitutes feels like walking through a minefield. It’s clunky, error-prone, and rarely scales well. And one customer's alternates don't mean anything to the next customer.
• BOMs and routings: If your ERP is slow or hard to work with, it becomes a bottleneck that delays quoting and drags out production.

Signs Your ERP Isn’t Built for You

• Creating BOMs feels like its own project.
• Work Orders get delayed because someone’s still typing in master data.
• You are seeing Excel files and tribal knowledge to “get around the system.”
• Planners and engineers are doing admin work instead of solving real problems.

What EMS Companies Actually Need

The essentials:

• Fast entry: Especially bulk import tools for parts, BOMs, and alternates.
• Flexible integrations: Pull data from 3rd party tools, customer portals, or public data stores. Push clean data into production. Make it seamless.

The nice-to-haves:

• Duplicate detection that isn’t dumb.
• Extra fields that serve real business logic, not just what’s in the manual.
• Smart relationships between parts and their alternates that actually reflect how work gets done.

A Bit of Tough Love

You’re never going to have perfect master data. That’s not a failure. That’s reality.

The goal isn’t to create perfect records. The goal is to catch issues early, move fast, and build good product. You’re paid for assembly, not for filling out every optional field in your ERP.

What Happens When You Get It Wrong?

Worst case:

The wrong part gets placed on thousands of boards. Nobody catches it in time. It ships. You damage your relationship with the customer—or lose them entirely.

More common:

You spend 80 percent of your project timeline doing data entry. Production is rushed. Lead times slip. Margins shrink.

If You’re Choosing an ERP…

Start with one question:

“How fast can we create, import, and manage BOMs and part masters without sacrificing traceability or accuracy?”

If they can’t answer clearly, you’re probably signing up for a tedious future.

Want help figuring this out?

Let’s talk.

We’ve seen lots of workarounds. We’d rather help you build something that doesn’t need them.