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The Costly Mistake: Forcing a Generic ERP to Handle Steel Order Entry
Steel mills spend hundreds of thousands to millions trying to customize Order Entry inside SAP or Oracle — even though manufacturing ERP modules can range from $3K to $40M depending on scale. The result? Years of delays, skyrocketing costs, and workflows that never fit the realities of steel.
Four Important Flaws
Generic ERPs often blow up budgets — even for a single custom module like Order Entry:
- Module costs range from $3M to $20M depending on scale and customization (manufacturing ERP modules)
- Years of customization with many consultants just to make the module work for steel.
- Up to 300% cost overruns as change requests, missing features, and re‑engineering pile up.
- Frustration about hidden costs: rework, integrations, scripts, and delays that may stall the entire plant.
IOM typical implementation (Order Entry L4): $5M–$10M.
Difference your mill avoids: up to $10M — sometimes far more.
Even when ERP vendors promise “a quick fix” for your order management, the reality for Brownfield mills is brutally different — especially for something as complex as Steel Manufacturing:
- Scoping: 6–18 months just to explain steel logic they don’t understand
- Build & customization: 2–4 years of rewriting the ERP to mimic steel workflows
- Rework & iterations: 3–7 years of patches, change orders, and never‑ending adjustments
- Total time-to-stability: 5–10 years, just for an Order Entry module to work correctly in steel
By the time your Order Entry finally works,
your technology is outdated, your processes are behind, and your competitors have already moved forward.
IOM: 1.5 years. Stable. Steel‑native. Operational Day One.
- One-size-fits-all logic: The same system tries to serve automakers, healthcare providers, food processors, and steel mills. It serves no one particularly well.
- You must adapt your process: The software dictates how you work, not the other way around. "Use our workflow or customize it expensively."
- Wasted functionality: 80% of the modules don't apply to steel. You pay for and maintain features you'll never use.
- Generic integrators: Consultants proposing modules that sound good but don't match steel reality (coil tracking, grade families, metallurgical specs, IATF compliance). You spend months explaining steel to generalists.
Your process is constrained by software logic, not empowered by it.
When something breaks in a Generic ERP Order Entry module, support grinds to a halt:
- Impersonal organizations: Your account is a ticket number. Finding someone who understands steel? Nearly impossible.
- Slow ticket resolution: Responses in weeks, not hours. Critical production issues? Sit tight.
- Forced upgrade cycles: You must follow the vendor's version roadmap, often with breaking changes that require new customization.
- Vendor lock-in complete: You can’t adapt or fix anything yourself.
IOM support: Dedicated team, steel experts, direct access to developers.
IOM vs Generic ERP order entry module: The Facts
| Criterion | Generic ERP Order Entry Module | IOM |
|---|---|---|
| Total Cost | $3M – $20M+ depending on scale & custom work | $5M – $10M (depending on customization) |
| Timeline | 5-10 years to reach stability | 1.5 years (our customers' average) |
| Industry Expertise | Generic, "One-size-fits-all" | Steel-Native since 2007 |
| Customization | Low flexibility – you adapt your process | Entirely adapted to YOUR processes |
| Go-Live Result | High failure rate, constant adjustments | Works from Day 1 |
| Code Ownership | Total vendor lock-in |
Optional premium add‑on (full source code available at additional cost)
|
| Support | Slow, impersonal, non-steel experts | Direct access to the IOM team, steel specialists, fast response |
| Integration | Complex, requires heavy consulting | Modern APIs, facilitated integrations |
| Training | 6–12 months to become functional | Team fully operational in less than a month |
| Future Evolution | Rigid, costly modifications | Flexible, fast additions |
The Business Case: IOM Makes Rational Financial Sense
Interactive ROI Calculator
Projected Outcomes
The real question: Does your software serve your process, or dictate it ?
At IOM, we build software that supports your process, not the reverse. We don't force your team into a mold. We learn how you operate, why you operate that way, and then we engineer software that makes you faster, more accurate, and more flexible.
That's the fundamental difference between a partner and a vendor.
Mark Orvis on Process-First Design:
"The software can't dictate how you run your business.It should be the opposite. You decide how you want to manage your company. Then you build software that supports that. At Shift, that's exactly what we do. That's IOM."