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Digitalisation for Manufacturing and Production in Switzerland.


In the factory, every minute of inefficiency costs. Digitalisation is not a luxury — it is the necessary condition to remain competitive.

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Sector challengesWhere manufacturing SMEs lose efficiencyThe digitalisation journeyROI

Sector challenges

 Why Swiss manufacturing needs a different ERP

Swiss manufacturing SMEs operate in a high-pressure context: production costs among the highest in Europe, clients demanding certified quality (ISO 9001, ISO 13485, EN 9100) and ever tighter delivery times, cross-border supply chains with Italy, Germany and France. In this context, planning production in Excel or managing bills of materials in spreadsheets separate from accounting is not just inefficient — it is a concrete operational risk.

The Ticino and Italian-Swiss manufacturer has specific characteristics: many SMEs with 10–80 employees, mixed make-to-order and make-to-stock production, supply to enterprise clients requiring EDI or API integration, quality certifications to maintain, often with clients in the medical or aerospace sector.

Where manufacturing SMEs lose efficiency

  • Manual production planning: orders entered in Excel, production capacity estimated "by eye". The result: bottlenecks discovered too late, delivery delays, unplanned overtime.
  • Unsynchronised bills of materials: the BoM updated by the technical manager does not reach the warehouse in real time. Wrong components are produced, material already available is repurchased.
  • Absent or manual batch traceability: in case of non-conformity or recall, tracing the defective batch takes days. For those producing in the medical or food sector, this is a direct regulatory risk.
  • Quality control outside the production flow: quality checks are done on paper or with separate software. Data does not enter the management system, traceability is interrupted.
  • Supply chain disconnected from production: supplier orders are generated manually, with delays and overstocking. Vendor rating is done "by feel", not based on data.
  • Accounting separate from production: the real cost of a production order is only known at month-end, not in real time. Margin per order is an approximation.

The digitalisation journey

The digitalisation of a factory does not happen all at once. The most effective path is in phases, with a measurable ROI before moving to the next phase.

Phase 1: Management of production orders and bills of materials. Starting from the product master data, digitalising the BoMs and connecting customer orders to production. Immediate result: visibility on what to produce, when and with what resources.

Phase 2: Integrated warehouse, batch traceability and supply chain. Automated movements, serial and batch numbers tracked from purchase to delivery, supplier orders automatically generated by MRP. Result: 20–35% reduction in time dedicated to warehouse management and purchasing.

Phase 3: Integrated quality control, advanced planning and machine integration. Quality checkpoints in the production flow, production capacity planned on real data, integration with MES or machines via API. Result: complete traceability from raw material to finished product, actual production cost per order.

ROI

Manufacturing SMEs that implement an integrated ERP typically report:

  • 25–40% reduction in time dedicated to production planning
  • 15–25% decrease in warehouse stock levels thanks to automatic MRP-based reordering
  • 60–80% reduction in picking and delivery errors with batch traceability
  • Actual production cost available per order, not only at month-end
  • Response times in case of non-conformity reduced from days to hours

Our solution for the manufacturing sector: Odoo

We configure Odoo to adapt it to each company's production model: make-to-order, make-to-stock or hybrid. It is not about activating standard modules: every implementation starts from the analysis of real processes — order flow, BoM structure, warehouse logic, integrations with existing systems — and arrives at a system that the production team actually uses from the first week after go-live.

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FAQ

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The main criteria for a Swiss manufacturing SME are: native MRP support (order-based production planning), management of multi-level bills of materials, batch and serial number traceability, integration of production, warehouse and accounting, compliance with Swiss regulations (VAT CH, QR-Bill) and scalability to add quality and supply chain modules over time. EsseLab evaluates free of charge the alignment between your requirements and the system capabilities in an initial discovery session.

Yes. Odoo natively supports three production modes: make-to-order (production starts from the customer order), make-to-stock (production for stock with reorder thresholds) and hybrid — where some product families are produced to order and others to stock. EsseLab configures the flow based on the company's real production model, with the ability to manage different modes per product line.

Integration takes place depending on the protocols supported by the machine or MES. EsseLab designs the custom connector to collect progress, cycle time, scrap and downtime data directly from machines and record it in Odoo — eliminating manual entry and making productive efficiency data available in real time. Technical feasibility is verified in the discovery phase.