Another Reason Open Source ERP Rocks!! iDempiere and ADempiere

Hi Everyone,

I love open source ERP! I have used it now for 10 years, and I love how it helps growing and rapidly changing organizations. Monday, I was in a meeting, and the purchasing/planning department was not happy with the replenishment process. They were forced to dig through extra records to find the ‘real’ replenishment needs.

Here was the issue: the replenishment process was including products where the quantity on hand was equal-to or less-than the ‘Re-order below minimum threshold’ value. The desire was to only show less-than records. This situation might seem trivial problem; however, the daily replenishment report was significantly longer than what was actually needed. If you have ever been in an organization that touts its abilities to achieve high standards, you understand the accuracy and efficiency is a big deal.

The solution was easy to implement:

Here is what the replenishment code currently says: (less then or equal)
sql = “UPDATE T_Replenish”+ ” SET QtyToOrder = CASE WHEN QtyOnHand – QtyReserved + QtyOrdered <= Level_Min “+ ” THEN Level_Max – QtyOnHand + QtyReserved – QtyOrdered “+ ” ELSE 0 END “+ “WHERE ReplenishType=’1′”

Here is what it should say based on the discussion: (less than)
sql = “UPDATE T_Replenish”+ ” SET QtyToOrder = CASE WHEN QtyOnHand – QtyReserved + QtyOrdered < Level_Min “+ ” THEN Level_Max – QtyOnHand + QtyReserved – QtyOrdered “+ ” ELSE 0 END “+ “WHERE ReplenishType=’1′”

By changing a single character, we prevented implementing a work-around for over 100K products. The issue was identified on Monday. The fix was released on Thursday. Now, the replenishment report only shows products that truely need action.

What makes this sitaution so significant is the alternative. If you use Microsoft Dyanmics, Sage, Netsuite, or many of the other proprietary ERP products, you painfully understand the the next steps:

1. You find and implement a work around.
2. You report the bug to Microsoft (if you have paid subscription).
3. You hope the bug finds it way onto a roadmap.
4. You hope the proposed solution gets released in the near future (in the next year).
5. You hope they understood and fixed the real problem.
6. You hope they did not break anything when the released 10 other features that you did not need.

Why consider Open Source ERP

Open source ERP gives you every opportunity to prove or disprove its ability to support your company’s ERP needs on a timeline that satisfies your organizational needs. With open source ERP, you do not face the same financial constraints nor do you face the same conflicts of interest as with commercial ERP. Instead, you invest in the appropriate skills and knowledge for your people and processes. Best of all – if open source ERP cannot solve your company’s needs, you can safely justify spending the additional $2K to $5K per person per year for life of your commercial ERP to help drive your organization’s success.

ADempiere vs iDempiere vs Openbravo vs Compiere

Please note that ADempiere, iDempiere and Openbravo are forks or copies from Compiere. Therefore, they have similar abilities mentioned above. The biggest difference is that ADempiere and iDempiere are pure open source. There are no features held behind a commercial or paid license.