If your aviation operation runs on a patchwork of spreadsheets, outdated legacy systems, and endless email chains, you know the daily frustration. It’s a constant struggle to connect the dots between maintenance schedules, inventory levels, and flight operations. This disconnected approach doesn’t just create inefficiency; it introduces risk. A generic business software can’t solve this because it doesn’t speak the language of aviation. You need a system built for the unique complexities of your industry. This guide is designed to help you move beyond the chaos by comparing the top aerospace erp software providers and showing you how to find a solution that unifies your entire operation.
The aerospace industry operates under a unique set of pressures. It’s an environment where precision is non-negotiable, safety standards are absolute, and regulatory oversight is intense. Generic, off-the-shelf business software often falls short because it isn’t designed to handle these specific demands. An Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system built for aerospace is different. It’s engineered from the ground up to address the distinct hurdles you face every day, from managing global suppliers to ensuring every component is fully traceable for decades. Let’s look at the specific challenges an aerospace ERP is designed to solve.
In aerospace, your supply chain is a complex, global web of partners, and a single delay can have a ripple effect on production schedules and delivery dates. Gaining a clear view of this entire network is a significant challenge. An aerospace ERP provides real-time visibility into your supply chain, helping you track materials from procurement to delivery. This transparency reduces uncertainty and allows you to proactively manage disruptions instead of just reacting to them. With a clear line of sight, you can improve your purchasing and inventory control, ensuring you have the right parts at the right time without tying up excess capital.
Compliance is the bedrock of the aerospace industry. Adhering to stringent regulations like ITAR, AS9100, and others isn’t just good practice; it’s a requirement to operate. Manually tracking and documenting everything for these standards is incredibly time-consuming and prone to error. An aerospace ERP centralizes your data and automates many compliance-related tasks. It helps secure sensitive information, maintains a detailed audit trail for every action, and simplifies reporting. This makes your aircraft document management more efficient and keeps you prepared for audits at all times, reducing risk and administrative overhead.
Unlike consumer goods, aerospace components have incredibly long lifecycles, often spanning decades of service. Throughout this time, they undergo extensive Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO) activities that must be meticulously documented. An aerospace ERP is built specifically for this long-term tracking. It focuses on maintaining a complete history for every part and assembly, from its initial production to every maintenance event. This ensures full traceability and compliance, which is essential for aircraft maintenance management. The system’s focus is less on pure production speed and more on ensuring sustained airworthiness and security over the product’s entire life.
Aerospace inventory consists of high-value, specialized parts, and managing it effectively is a delicate balancing act. Carrying too much inventory ties up capital, while having too little can lead to costly operational delays. An aerospace ERP gives you precise control over your stock. It helps you track not only the quantity and location of parts but also the associated costs, including materials, labor, and overhead. This detailed financial visibility allows you to identify opportunities for cost savings and optimize inventory levels. You can maintain lean operations without ever compromising the availability of critical components for your flight operations.
Many aviation companies still rely on a patchwork of outdated legacy systems, spreadsheets, and paper-based processes. These disconnected systems create information silos, hinder collaboration, and make it difficult to get a clear picture of your operations. A modern aerospace ERP replaces this fragmented environment with a single, integrated platform. This streamlines workflows and provides a unified source of truth for your entire organization. It also empowers your team with modern tools, like the SOMA Production App, which gives technicians and managers access to real-time data and task lists directly on the hangar floor, improving efficiency and decision-making.
If you’ve ever tried to fit a square peg into a round hole, you have a good idea of what it’s like to use a generic ERP for aerospace operations. While a general Enterprise Resource Planning system can handle standard business tasks like accounting and HR, it simply isn’t built for the unique pressures of the aviation industry. The difference isn’t just a few extra features; it’s a fundamental design philosophy centered on uncompromising safety, strict regulatory adherence, and extreme complexity.
An aerospace ERP is engineered from the ground up to speak the language of aviation. It understands the entire lifecycle of an aircraft, from manufacturing and assembly to decades of maintenance and eventual retirement. It’s designed to manage multi-tier supply chains where a single missing part can ground a fleet, and it provides the traceability needed to prove compliance to auditors at a moment’s notice. A generic system requires extensive, costly, and often clunky customizations to even approach this level of functionality. A specialized aerospace ERP, on the other hand, provides these critical capabilities right out of the box.
In aviation, compliance isn’t optional; it’s the foundation of your license to operate. Aerospace ERPs are designed with this reality in mind, embedding quality management and regulatory adherence into every workflow. Unlike general systems that treat compliance as an add-on, these specialized platforms have built-in controls to help you meet stringent standards like ITAR, EAR, and AS9100. This means quality checks, certifications, and traceability are part of the process, not a separate task. This native support ensures that your operations consistently meet the high safety and quality benchmarks demanded by regulators, giving you a clear path to audit readiness and operational integrity.
Building an aircraft is incredibly complex, involving thousands of components, intricate sub-assemblies, and long product lifecycles. A generic ERP often falters when faced with this level of detail. Aerospace ERPs, however, are specifically designed to handle multi-level Bills of Materials (BOMs) that can be dozens of layers deep. They provide robust tools for managing engineering changes, planning production schedules, and maintaining full traceability for every nut and bolt. This specialized support is crucial for managing the intricate web of parts and processes involved in aerospace manufacturing and purchasing and inventory control, ensuring everything comes together correctly and on schedule.
For a general ERP, the product lifecycle often ends once an item is sold. In aerospace, that’s just the beginning. An aircraft’s life is measured in decades of service, requiring constant Maintenance, Repair, and Overhaul (MRO). A key differentiator of an aerospace ERP is its integrated aircraft maintenance management capabilities. These systems seamlessly connect maintenance schedules with parts inventory, labor tracking, and compliance documentation. This integration streamlines MRO operations, improves efficiency, and ensures that every maintenance action is properly recorded and verified, which is something a standard ERP simply isn’t equipped to do.
The aerospace industry runs on documentation. From maintenance logs and parts certifications to technician qualifications and compliance reports, the paper trail is immense. An aerospace ERP provides a centralized system for aircraft document management, creating a single source of truth for all critical data. This ensures that every record is secure, version-controlled, and easily accessible. Instead of scrambling to find paperwork during an audit, your team can pull up any required document in seconds. This capability is essential for staying audit-ready at all times, minimizing risk and demonstrating unwavering compliance to regulatory bodies.
When you're evaluating ERP systems, it’s easy to get lost in a long list of features. But for aerospace, the stakes are higher, and your needs are far more specific than in other industries. A generic ERP simply can't keep up with the demands of complex manufacturing, multi-tier supply chains, and stringent regulatory oversight. The right ERP isn't just another piece of software; it's the central nervous system of your entire operation, connecting every department and process into a cohesive whole. It should be designed from the ground up to handle the unique challenges you face every day.
As you compare your options, it's crucial to look past the general business functions and focus on the specialized tools that will actually make a difference in your workflow. This means prioritizing features that ensure compliance, provide total visibility, and support the long, complex lifecycles of your assets. A system built for retail or general manufacturing won't understand the nuances of MRO processes or the critical importance of maintaining a complete digital paper trail for every part. To help you cut through the noise and find a solution that truly fits, I've broken down the essential features that any aerospace ERP worth its salt should offer.
In aerospace, compliance isn't just a box to check; it's a fundamental requirement for staying in business. Your ERP should be your partner in meeting these standards, not another hurdle to overcome. Look for a system with built-in tools for regulations like ITAR, AS9100, and CMMC 2.0. This means the software should help you automatically generate compliance reports, maintain audit trails, and manage quality control documentation. A strong ERP centralizes all your critical information, making it easier to prove compliance and prepare for audits. Having a robust aircraft document management system integrated within the ERP is a game-changer for audit readiness.
The aerospace supply chain is notoriously complex, with multiple tiers and long lead times. Without a clear view of what's happening, you risk costly delays and operational disruptions. Your ERP must provide real-time visibility into your entire supply chain, from raw materials to finished parts. This helps you anticipate potential shortages, manage supplier performance, and ensure on-time delivery. This visibility is directly tied to effective aircraft inventory management. Knowing exactly what parts you have, where they are, and when you need to reorder is critical for keeping your maintenance schedules on track and your aircraft in the air.
Aerospace manufacturing and maintenance projects are long, intricate, and subject to constant change. A generic project management tool just won't cut it. You need an ERP with features specifically designed for complex, multi-level bills of materials (BOMs) and long product lifecycles. The system should help you track every component, manage engineering changes, and oversee project timelines and costs with precision. This is especially important for MRO facilities, where effective aircraft maintenance management depends on coordinating labor, parts, and compliance documentation for multiple projects at once. The right ERP gives you the control to manage these complexities without letting anything fall through the cracks.
Your team isn't always sitting at a desk. Maintenance technicians are on the hangar floor, pilots are in the cockpit, and managers are often moving between facilities. A modern aerospace ERP should offer cloud-based access, allowing your team to get the information they need from anywhere, at any time. This flexibility is essential for maintaining productivity and making quick decisions. Look for providers that also offer mobile applications, like the SOMA Production App, which empower your on-the-ground personnel to update work orders, check inventory, and access technical documents directly from a tablet or phone.
Your ERP is the core of your digital ecosystem, but it rarely works alone. It needs to communicate seamlessly with other critical systems, such as Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) for design data and Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES) for shop floor control. When evaluating an ERP, ask about its integration capabilities. A good system will have open APIs and pre-built connectors that allow it to share data with your other software tools. This creates a single source of truth across your entire organization, from engineering and flight operations to maintenance and finance, ensuring everyone is working with the most current information.
Choosing an ERP is a major decision, so it’s important to know the key players in the aerospace industry. Each provider offers a unique set of features and focuses on different aspects of aviation management, from MRO and manufacturing to flight operations and compliance. While some are massive, general-purpose platforms with aerospace modules, others are specialized systems built from the ground up for aviation. Here’s a look at eight of the top aerospace ERP software providers to help you find the right fit for your operations.
SOMA Software is an all-in-one aviation management platform designed specifically for the industry. It provides a single source of truth by integrating everything from maintenance and flight operations to purchasing and inventory control. The system is built to simplify complex processes, helping you manage your fleet with an intuitive interface that minimizes risks and prevents disruptions. SOMA’s comprehensive aircraft maintenance management solution includes tools for planning, tracking, and execution. It also features powerful mobile apps like the SOMA Production App and ControlHUB App, which give your teams the information they need right on the hangar floor or flight line, ensuring your fleet stays compliant and operational.
As a global leader in enterprise software, SAP offers a powerful ERP solution tailored for the aerospace and defense sector. The SAP A&D platform is well-suited for large organizations managing complex, multi-year projects with stringent regulatory demands. Its strengths lie in detailed project management, robust compliance features, and deep supply chain management capabilities. Companies that are already part of the SAP ecosystem often find it a natural choice for standardizing operations. It’s a comprehensive system designed to handle the scale and complexity of major aerospace manufacturing and defense contracting, providing visibility from the top floor to the shop floor.
Oracle is another major player offering a robust, cloud-based ERP solution that serves the aerospace and defense industry. Oracle ERP Cloud is particularly strong in financial management, procurement, and project management. Its cloud architecture provides scalability and flexibility, which is a huge plus for growing companies or those looking to adapt quickly to market changes. For organizations that need powerful financial controls and reporting alongside their operational management, Oracle provides a unified platform. It helps streamline procurement processes and gives leaders a clear view of project costs and performance, making it a solid choice for data-driven decision-making.
IFS has carved out a strong reputation in the aerospace and defense market by focusing on project-based manufacturing and comprehensive asset management. The IFS A&D solution is particularly well-regarded among MROs and organizations with extensive aftermarket service operations. It’s designed to manage the entire lifecycle of an asset, from manufacturing to maintenance and eventual retirement. The platform includes strong support for industry-specific compliance and quality standards, helping you maintain airworthiness and operational readiness. If your business revolves around complex maintenance schedules and long-term asset management, IFS provides the specialized tools needed to keep things running smoothly.
Infor provides an ERP solution built specifically for the needs of the aerospace and defense industry. The Infor CloudSuite A&D platform comes with industry-specific functionalities right out of the box, reducing the need for heavy customization. It focuses on supply chain management, production control, and strict compliance tracking. Infor is designed to help organizations meet the demanding quality and regulatory requirements of the sector, such as ITAR and AS9100. Its cloud-based delivery model also ensures that you have access to the latest features and security updates, making it a forward-looking choice for manufacturers and MROs aiming for greater efficiency.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers a flexible and highly adaptable ERP system that can be configured to meet the needs of the aerospace industry. While not exclusively an A&D solution, its modular approach allows companies to implement the specific tools they need for financial management, supply chain operations, and project management. The platform’s main advantage is its seamless integration with the broader Microsoft ecosystem, including Office 365 and Power BI. This makes Dynamics 365 a great option for organizations that want to build a connected, data-centric environment and create custom workflows to optimize their unique processes.
Epicor Kinetic is an ERP solution designed with manufacturers in mind, and it has strong capabilities that serve the aerospace and defense sector. The platform excels at production management, supply chain logistics, and quality control, making it a good fit for parts manufacturers and suppliers in the aviation ecosystem. Epicor for Aerospace and Defense helps companies streamline their shop floor operations, manage complex bills of materials (BOMs), and maintain the detailed documentation required for compliance. For businesses focused on the manufacturing side of aerospace, Epicor provides the tools needed to improve production efficiency and ensure every part meets exacting standards.
SYSPRO offers an ERP solution that is particularly strong for manufacturers and distributors within the aerospace supply chain. It provides practical tools for managing inventory, planning production, and ensuring compliance with industry standards. SYSPRO for Aerospace and Defense is known for its user-friendly interface and its focus on delivering tangible operational improvements. The system is designed to help you gain better control over your materials, reduce waste, and improve on-time delivery performance. For small to mid-sized manufacturers looking for a straightforward and effective ERP, SYSPRO offers a solid foundation for managing production and maintaining quality control.
Choosing an ERP is a major decision, so it’s important to look beyond the feature list. While the providers we’ve covered are all leaders in the field, they differ in key areas that can impact your operations and total investment. A system that works perfectly for a large defense contractor might not be the right fit for a growing MRO facility. The details matter, and understanding them is the key to selecting a long-term partner, not just a software vendor. A platform might have every feature imaginable, but if it’s difficult to implement or doesn’t integrate with your existing tools, it can create more problems than it solves.
To make a confident choice, you need to compare these systems based on what matters most to your organization. We’ll look at four critical factors: pricing and total cost, scalability and customization, integration capabilities, and the quality of implementation and support. Thinking through these areas will help you find a partner and a platform that can support your goals not just today, but for years to come. This isn't just about buying software; it's about investing in the future of your operations and building a foundation for sustainable growth and compliance.
When you look at ERP pricing, you’re seeing only one part of the picture. It’s more helpful to consider the total cost of ownership (TCO), which includes implementation, data migration, training, and ongoing support. Some providers use a subscription model (SaaS), which typically means lower upfront costs, while others offer a perpetual license with a larger initial investment. The goal is to find a system that delivers a strong return on investment. Many aerospace companies start seeing a positive impact from their ERP within 12 to 18 months as they streamline processes and reduce manual work. Instead of focusing solely on the initial price tag, evaluate how the ERP will generate value by improving efficiency, ensuring compliance, and providing the data you need for smarter aircraft maintenance management.
The aerospace industry isn’t one-size-fits-all, and your ERP shouldn’t be either. The best systems are flexible enough to be configured to your specific workflows, whether you’re focused on manufacturing, MRO, or flight operations. As your business grows, your ERP needs to scale with you, handling more users, larger datasets, and expanding operational complexity without a hitch. Look for a platform that allows you to tailor its functions to your needs. A truly effective ERP simplifies your daily work, helps you maintain compliance, and gives you better control over your supply chain. The ability to adapt the software to your business, rather than changing your processes to fit the software, is a sign of a powerful and well-designed system.
Your ERP should act as the central nervous system for your entire operation, not another data silo. This means it needs to connect seamlessly with the other software you rely on, including Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and financial platforms. Strong integration ensures that data flows freely between departments, from the hangar floor to the back office. This connectivity is what gives you a real-time, comprehensive view of your business. When your ERP can pull data from your purchasing and inventory systems and connect it to maintenance schedules, you can make faster, more informed decisions. A system that handles complex part management and connects directly to the factory floor is essential for maintaining quality and efficiency.
Even the best software is only as good as its implementation. A smooth rollout requires a clear plan, strong leadership, and a strategy for migrating your data securely. Your vendor should act as a partner in this process, providing guidance and expertise to get your team up and running with minimal disruption. After you go live, ongoing support is critical. In an industry that operates 24/7, you need access to experts who can resolve issues quickly. Look for vendors that offer comprehensive support through multiple channels, like phone, email, and online portals. Having a reliable support team ensures that your operations, from flight operations to maintenance planning, continue to run smoothly.
Adopting an aerospace ERP is more than a simple software upgrade; it's about creating a central hub for your entire operation. Think of it as the digital backbone that connects every department, from the maintenance hangar and flight operations to inventory and finance. When all your systems communicate seamlessly, you can move away from siloed data and reactive problem-solving. Instead of teams working in isolation with separate spreadsheets and outdated information, everyone operates from a single source of truth. This integration is the key to streamlining your processes, ensuring compliance, and making smarter, data-driven decisions that keep your fleet in the air.
The right ERP system doesn't just organize your business, it transforms it, leading to tangible improvements in efficiency, control, and resilience. It helps you anticipate needs, allocate resources effectively, and maintain the highest standards of safety and quality. By centralizing data and automating workflows, an ERP gives you the visibility and control needed to manage complex projects, adhere to strict regulations, and optimize your entire value chain. Let's look at some of the most significant benefits you can expect when you implement a dedicated aerospace ERP.
An aerospace ERP simplifies your most complex workflows by bringing them into a single, unified platform. Instead of your team juggling multiple spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected software, all critical information is accessible in one place. This consolidation dramatically reduces manual data entry, which in turn minimizes the risk of human error and frees up your skilled technicians to focus on what they do best. With automated processes for everything from work orders to parts requests, your entire operation runs more smoothly.
This newfound efficiency directly translates to better cost control. A clear, real-time view of your operations helps you spot inefficiencies and trim waste. You can accurately track labor hours, monitor spending on parts, and manage budgets with greater precision. By optimizing your aircraft maintenance management, you can reduce downtime and keep your fleet flying, all while keeping a firm handle on your bottom line.
Guesswork has no place in aviation. An aerospace ERP replaces assumptions with facts by providing real-time data from across your organization. You can instantly see the status of a maintenance check, check current inventory levels, or monitor flight schedules as they unfold. This live visibility allows you to shift from a reactive stance, where you're always putting out fires, to a proactive one where you can anticipate challenges before they become critical problems.
Imagine seeing a potential parts shortage weeks in advance or identifying a maintenance bottleneck before it grounds an aircraft. With a tool like the SOMA ControlHUB App, decision-makers get a live dashboard of key metrics, enabling them to act quickly and confidently. This level of transparency extends throughout your supply chain, reducing uncertainty and helping you maintain schedules and service levels reliably.
In the highly regulated aerospace industry, compliance isn't optional, and audits are a fact of life. An ERP built specifically for aerospace can be your greatest ally in this area. These systems are designed with standards like ITAR, EAR, and AS9100 in mind, providing built-in features to help you meet strict regulatory requirements automatically. It tracks every part, every repair, and every sign-off, creating a complete and traceable history.
When it's time for an audit, you can say goodbye to frantic searches through paper files and scattered digital folders. An ERP centralizes all your critical information, making your aircraft document management a straightforward process. You can pull up any required record in seconds, demonstrating a clear and unbroken chain of custody and compliance. This constant state of audit readiness not only reduces stress but also protects your organization from fines and operational disruptions.
The aerospace supply chain is notoriously complex, with long lead times and highly specialized components. A single disruption can have a ripple effect, causing costly delays and AOG situations. An aerospace ERP gives you the tools to manage this complexity and build a more resilient supply chain. It provides end-to-end visibility, allowing you to track parts from the moment they're ordered until they are installed on an aircraft.
By integrating your purchasing and inventory control with your maintenance planning and flight operations, the system ensures you have the right parts on hand when you need them. You can manage supplier performance, forecast demand more accurately, and optimize stock levels to avoid both shortages and costly overstocking. This creates a robust, agile supply chain that can better adapt to unexpected challenges and keep your fleet operational.
Picking the right ERP system is a major decision that will shape your operations for years to come. It’s not just about buying software; it’s about finding a partner that understands the unique pressures of the aerospace industry. With so many options available, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. The key is to break down the selection process into a few manageable steps. By focusing on your specific needs for compliance, industry functions, deployment, and vendor support, you can confidently choose a system that will help your business run smoothly and stay ahead of the curve. Think of it as building a checklist to find the perfect fit for your team and your fleet.
Your first and most important filter is compliance. The aerospace and defense industry operates under a mountain of strict regulations that generic ERP systems simply aren't built to handle. You need a platform designed from the ground up to manage requirements like ITAR, AS9100, and CMMC 2.0. A good aerospace ERP doesn't just store this information; it actively helps you maintain audit readiness and simplifies reporting. Make sure any system you consider has built-in tools to ensure your fleet remains compliant and operational, because falling short in this area is not an option.
Once you’ve narrowed down your options to compliant systems, it’s time to look at the features. An aerospace ERP needs to do much more than a standard business platform. Look for industry-specific functions that address your daily challenges, from managing complex, multi-level bills of materials (BOMs) to tracking long product lifecycles. Your software should offer integrated MRO capabilities and robust project management for complex manufacturing jobs. It also needs to provide clear visibility into your supply chain and support your flight operations. These specialized tools are what turn an ERP from a simple database into a central hub for your entire operation.
Next, think about how the software will be deployed and what it will truly cost over time. Many aerospace companies are moving to cloud-based ERP systems, and for good reason. The cloud offers greater flexibility, makes collaboration across teams and locations easier, and often provides stronger security than on-premise solutions. It also gives you access to mobile tools like the SOMA Production App that keep your team connected from anywhere. When evaluating price, look beyond the initial subscription fee. Consider the total cost of ownership, which includes implementation, data migration, training, and ongoing support, to get a realistic picture of the investment.
Finally, remember that you’re not just buying software; you’re entering a long-term partnership with a vendor. Look for a provider with a proven track record in the aerospace and defense industry. Do they have positive customer reviews? Do they understand the complexities of government contracts and industry regulations? A vendor with deep expertise will offer a more intuitive platform and be better equipped to help you solve problems. Don’t be afraid to ask detailed questions about their customer support. A responsive, knowledgeable support team is invaluable, especially during implementation and as your business continues to grow.
My company is a smaller MRO, not a huge airline. Is an aerospace ERP still a good fit for me? Absolutely. An aerospace ERP is not just for massive corporations. In fact, smaller MROs and operators can see huge benefits because these systems are designed to scale. The core challenges of compliance, parts traceability, and maintenance management are universal in aviation, regardless of your company's size. A good ERP will help you streamline your specific workflows, giving you the same level of control and audit readiness as a larger competitor, but in a package that fits your operational scope and budget.
What's the single most important reason to choose an aerospace-specific ERP over a generic one? The most critical reason is built-in compliance. A generic ERP treats regulatory adherence as an afterthought that requires expensive and clunky customization. An aerospace ERP, however, is designed from the ground up with standards like AS9100 and ITAR integrated into its core functions. This means quality control, audit trails, and document management are part of the natural workflow, not a separate task, which is essential for maintaining your license to operate.
How difficult is it to switch from our current spreadsheets and old systems to a new ERP? The transition is a significant project, but it's far more manageable than you might think, especially with the right vendor. A good implementation partner will guide you through the entire process, from planning and data migration to training your team. While it requires commitment, the long-term payoff is a move away from disconnected, error-prone manual processes. You'll replace information silos and guesswork with a single, reliable source of truth that makes everyone's job easier.
You mentioned cloud-based systems. Is it really secure enough for sensitive aerospace and defense data? This is a common and important question. Reputable cloud ERP providers for the aerospace industry invest heavily in security measures that often exceed what a single company could manage on its own. They use advanced encryption, secure data centers, and strict access controls to protect your information and help you meet regulatory requirements like ITAR. When choosing a vendor, always ask about their specific security protocols and compliance certifications to ensure they meet the high standards our industry demands.
What is the first practical step I should take when considering a new ERP system? The best first step is to perform an internal assessment of your current processes. Before you even look at software demos, get your team together and map out your biggest pain points. Where are the bottlenecks in your maintenance workflow? What compliance tasks take up the most time? Where do information gaps cause delays? Having a clear, honest picture of your specific challenges will give you a powerful checklist to use when you start evaluating different ERP solutions.
