Rethinking Manufacturing Technology in 2026

For a long time, the technology conversation in manufacturing came down to one question: do we have the right ERP system? Today, that question has changed. Leaders are asking whether they have the right technology strategy altogether.

That shift was the focus of a recent SolutionsX webinar featuring Joey, Director of Sales & Customer Success at SolutionsX, and Suresh, Senior Vice President of Product Management at Infor. Together, they unpacked why the old model of “one system to run the whole business” is breaking down, what’s replacing it, and how manufacturers can start building a technology environment that actually keeps pace with the business.

Here’s what they had to say and what it means for your organization.

The Role of ERP Has Changed

ERP started out being viewed almost entirely through a financial lens: a system built to support accounting and financial operations. Today, organizations expect a lot more from it. They want ERP to drive visibility, efficiency, and insight across the entire enterprise.

As ERP has expanded beyond the accounting silo, so have the questions leaders are asking: How do we connect processes across departments? How do we improve decision-making? How do we build a more agile, data-driven organization? Those questions don’t have a one-system answer anymore.

What Changed in the Last Five to Ten Years

Three forces have reshaped how manufacturers think about technology:

Cloud made specialization affordable. Running specialized, industry-specific systems used to be expensive and complicated. The Cloud changed that, making it viable to run best-in-class tools instead of forcing everything into one platform.
Labor and supply chain volatility raised the risk of being slow. When conditions change quickly, being blind to what’s happening on the floor or in the supply chain gets expensive fast.
The workforce changed. Employees who grew up on consumer-grade software won’t tolerate clunky, disconnected systems. They expect real-time visibility.

Put together, these forces have pushed manufacturers away from a “does the system do everything?” mindset and toward a “does the ecosystem work together?” mindset.

Why One System Can’t Do It All Anymore

ERP has always been strong as a system of record as the financial and transactional backbone of the business. But it was never designed to handle everything a modern manufacturer needs, including real-time machine data, predictive maintenance, and deep customer relationship management.

When companies try to force all of that into a single monolithic ERP, the result is expensive customization and a system that becomes harder to maintain with every passing year.

The better model is to think of ERP as a hub. ERP remains the source of truth for orders, inventory, and financials, but it works alongside specialized systems for shop floor management, CRM, configure-price-quote, and supplier collaboration. Infor’s own approach illustrates the idea in practice: a core, industry-specific ERP engine paired with purpose-built modules — CPQ, MES, PLM — all connected through a platform layer. The hub-and-spoke model is becoming the standard structure for modern manufacturing tech environments.

Another way to visualize it is to think of your technology environment as a set of layers, each with a distinct job.

Core layer: Your ERP, sitting at the foundation as the system of record and single source of truth.
Operational layer: Purpose-built systems — MES, WMS, CRM, CPQ, PLM, EAM, HRIS — plugged in as your business actually needs them. Not every company needs every system; a business with a handful of customers may not need a full CRM at all.
Integration layer: APIs, event-driven workflows, and a reliable data platform that moves information accurately between every connected system. Without this layer, a system of record at the core does you no good if your MES doesn’t have the same information.
Intelligence layer: AI and analytics sit on top, delivering the trend recognition, recommendations, and reporting that help you make faster, smarter decisions.

We can’t stress enough that AI doesn’t replace the need for a strong core system. AI is built on data, and that data has to be accurate because AI depends on a strong foundation. If you skip the other layers, the “intelligence” layer just produces faster wrong answers.

Before You Invest: Questions Worth Asking First

Before jumping into a new ERP or a big technology investment, slow down and your team some questions:

Where do we have non-value-added, duplicate effort — shadow systems, manual re-entry, reports that are out of date the moment they’re run?
What is the true business outcome we’re actually trying to achieve — not just which system to buy?
What data does each system need to share to keep everything in sync?
Who owns the data — both which system is the system of record, and which person or team is accountable for it?
How does this investment fit into the broader ecosystem, rather than being solved department by department?

Perhaps the most useful reframe from the conversation: stop asking “what does our system do today?” That question traps you inside the limitations of your current setup. Instead, ask “what outcomes do we need our systems to produce?” Starting from a blank slate instead of your current state tends to surface inefficiencies you’d otherwise miss, including the reports nobody actually reads.

Making Integration Work: The Extensibility Factor

Everyone agrees that connected systems are the goal. The harder part is actually doing it. Suresh outlined three things that make integration realistic:

Modern, process-based APIs that let systems share data and functions in a standard way.
A strong integration platform to move that data reliably between systems.
Governance and shared data definitions — because if “item master” means something different in one system than it does in another, that mismatch will cause real problems downstream.

As Suresh summarized it, technology enables connection but discipline is what makes it stick and deliver value.

That discipline also shapes how to think about extensibility itself. Extensibility is about adapting the system to fit your business, not the other way around. Don’t shop for a 100% fit. If a system claims to check every box out of the box, it likely wasn’t built with your industry’s specific needs in mind. A better target is around 85%. A system built for your industry that gets most of the way there, with extensibility closing the rest of the gap. Push too far past that, and you risk what Joey called “death by integration” or “death by extensibility,” meaning too many bolt-ons trying to compensate for a system that was never the right fit to begin with.

The layers framework applies here too: keep the vendor’s source code untouched at the core, and build your differentiation — custom pricing, industry compliance, unique capabilities — in the operational layer. That protects you from painful upgrades later.

Warning Signs Your Tech Stack Isn’t Working

How do you know if it’s time to take a hard look at your environment? A few signs came up repeatedly in the discussion:

Heavy reliance on Excel, Access, sticky notes, or files saved locally instead of shared systems.
Disconnected or “shadow” systems where people manually duplicate data to get their job done.
People re-entering the same data multiple times — a strong signal of missing integration, and a source of costly errors.
Simple executive questions — “What’s our backlog?” “What are our inventory turns?” “Which customers are actually profitable?” — take too long to answer or produce a different answer depending on who’s asked.

For example, a board manufacturer facing a 14-day delay from a supplier had to run several manual reports just to understand the downstream impact. With a connected data and analytics layer, that kind of question should be answerable in minutes, not hours.

Three Takeaways to Bring Back to Your Team

The webinar closed with three key points:

ERP is still the foundation — but it’s no longer the entire strategy. The most successful manufacturers think beyond a single system and build a connected ecosystem that supports every part of the business.
Technology decisions are business decisions. When IT, operations, finance, and other teams work together on a shared technology strategy, organizations gain better visibility, make faster decisions, and stay adaptable as the business evolves.
You don’t have to transform everything overnight. Start by evaluating your current environment. Identify where disconnected systems, manual processes, or limited visibility are creating challenges today, and take one meaningful step toward a more connected future.

Where to Go From Here

If any of this sounds familiar — too much time spent re-keying data, executives waiting too long for simple answers, teams working from different versions of the truth — you’re not alone, and you don’t have to solve it all at once.

That’s exactly where SolutionsX can help. Whether you’re just starting to map out your technology strategy or you’re ready to evaluate a specific piece of your ecosystem, our team works with manufacturers every day to move from disconnected systems to a connected, scalable technology environment built for what’s next.

Reach out to schedule a conversation.