Which manufacturers does Digital WorkMate fit?
An ERP is not a universal choice. Here is who Digital WorkMate is made for and for whom you had better look at another package.
Digital WorkMate fits SMB manufacturers with discrete production and customer-specific products: complex BOMs, routings and a changing schedule, as in machine building, make-to-order, engineer-to-order and high-mix/low-volume. It is meant for companies up to about 250 employees. It fits less well with process industries with recipes and batches, companies without their own production, groups that need financial consolidation across entities and countries and machines with protocols other than OPC UA, Fanuc, Heidenhain and Sinumerik.
It fits you if
- You make customer-specific products or small series with changing routings.
- You have multi-level BOMs and revisions and want the estimate to follow from them.
- Your schedule changes daily and you want to schedule with finite capacity.
- You want to connect the shop floor (hours, consumption, scrap) directly to the ERP.
- You want a web-based platform without upgrade projects.
- You have up to about 250 employees.
Less suited: process industry
Digital WorkMate focuses on discrete manufacturing. Process industries often need recipes and batch processes.
Less suited: financial breadth
The own general ledger (Finance) is still flagged as experimental and financial consolidation across entities and countries is not included. You can keep using your own financial system.
Less suited: large organisations
Above 250 employees the functional breadth of an enterprise ERP is sometimes needed. Look at that together using the ERP Fit Scan.
What Digital WorkMate offers for this today
For each part you can see whether it is fully or partially available.
- Multi-level bills of materialsAvailable
Multi-level BOMs with phantom assemblies, dimensions (length, width, height) and material-loss rules for saw and cutting loss.
- Cost estimatingAvailable
Cost estimates based on the BOM; one action per component to reserve stock, create a purchase demand or a production order.
- Finite-capacity schedulingAvailable
Automatic priority-driven scheduler with ASAP and JIT scheduling, dependencies, critical path and a drag-to-reschedule Gantt chart. Per department you set a priority per production order, the Gantt shows department colours and filters on workplace, department and user, and a planner work list shows the operations of a user's workplaces. An operation without planned time does not block scheduling.
- Operator work listAvailable
Operations by priority per operator; start, park and complete with automatic time registration.
- OPC UA read and writeAvailable
Subscribe, poll, read and write OPC UA nodes; commands to the machine with status feedback.
- CNC connections (Fanuc, Heidenhain, Siemens Sinumerik)Available
Machine state, active program, tool, feed and speed, running times, cycle counts and alarms.
- Financial accounting (own general ledger)Partial
Own general ledger per tenant with automatic postings from invoices, purchasing, inventory and production. The module is still flagged as an experimental feature; a package-neutral export of posted entries is available, but a direct export to external accounting packages is not yet, and consolidation across entities or countries is missing.
- CRM / lead pipelinePartial
Leads and opportunities through the "Lead Sales and Marketing" portfolio template and leads from Outlook; no forecasting or lead-scoring engine.
Which manufacturers fit DWM?: frequently asked questions
Is Digital WorkMate suitable for a manufacturer with 30 employees?
Yes, if you make customer-specific products or small series with complex BOMs or a changing schedule. The price is tiered by number of employees and revenue, without a licence per user.
What if we mainly run mass production?
Then Digital WorkMate is probably not the best fit: it is designed for customer-specific production and small series. Take the ERP Fit Scan for an honest first indication.
Can Digital WorkMate run alongside our existing ERP?
Yes. If you only want to renew the shop floor and scheduling, Digital WorkMate can run alongside your existing ERP or financial system. See the migrating ERP page.
Related pages
See Digital WorkMate in action
In a no-obligation demo we show how Digital WorkMate supports your processes from sales to invoicing, with honest advice on what does and does not fit.