Manufacturing has never been simple, but today’s reality is pushing even the most resilient manufacturers to their limits.
Supply chains are volatile, customer expectations are higher, margins are tighter, and production decisions must be made faster than ever.
Yet many manufacturers are still trying to run modern operations on a patchwork of legacy ERP systems, spreadsheets, and disconnected tools that were never designed to work together.
In Maiza Cajanding’s view, this disconnect is one of the biggest barriers holding manufacturers back.
As a Senior NetSuite Consultant who has worked closely with organisations of varying sizes and complexity, she sees the same pattern repeatedly: systems that record transactions but fail to reflect how manufacturing actually works in practice.
And when systems don’t reflect reality, decision-making suffers.
“A lot of manufacturers technically have a system,” Maiza explains, “but that system is often limited to accounting entries and financial transactions. It doesn’t really account for what’s happening on the production floor.”
The Manufacturing Challenge: Today’s Reality
Manufacturing is inherently cross-functional.
Production planning depends on inventory accuracy. Inventory depends on procurement. Procurement depends on supplier timing.
Finance needs visibility across all of it.
When each department operates in isolation, manufacturers lose their ability to plan effectively.
Maiza frequently encounters organisations running separate systems for accounting, procurement, sales, and manufacturing—systems that don’t communicate with one another. The result is a lack of a single source of truth.
“There’s no visibility between departments,” she says. “You don’t know what’s happening in another department, so how can you work together properly?”
This fragmentation makes even basic planning a challenge.
To determine how much to produce, manufacturers need a clear view of plant capacity, raw material availability, and delivery schedules.
Without integrated data, planners are forced to rely on manual checks, emails, phone calls, and spreadsheets—introducing delays and errors at every stage.
For manufacturers operating just-in-time models, the stakes are even higher.
Production schedules are tightly linked to supplier delivery timelines, and any delay or miscommunication can halt operations entirely.
In these environments, disconnected systems are not just inefficient—they are risky.
Why Traditional Systems Struggle
Legacy ERP systems were often built with a finance-first mindset.
While they may handle journals, ledgers, and reporting adequately, they struggle to represent the dynamic, real-world processes of manufacturing.
Spreadsheets, meanwhile, create an illusion of control. They are flexible and familiar, but they rely heavily on manual input, reconciliation, and version control.
As Maiza notes, manufacturers using spreadsheets often spend more time compiling data than analysing it.
“If someone asks for the status of a production order, it can take hours—or even days—to get an answer. You’re chasing paper trails or combining multiple worksheets just to produce a report.”
Traditional systems also struggle to provide real-time insight.
Data is often historical by the time it reaches decision-makers, limiting their ability to respond quickly to changes on the shop floor or in the supply chain.
Maiza notes that for a manufacturer to succeed, they must know their plant capacity and raw material stock in real-time.
“The struggle would be planning,” Maiza says, particularly for those using Just-In-Time (JIT) methods. “You have to work closely with procurement or supply chain to make sure that the schedule that you planned for the production, the materials will come in time.”
In a disconnected environment, a production planner is essentially flying blind, unable to see what is happening in other departments until it is too late.
This is where cloud-first platforms like Oracle NetSuite from FinanSys fundamentally change the equation.
Why NetSuite Fits Manufacturing Specifically
NetSuite was designed as a cloud ERP from the ground up, and that architectural choice matters.
For manufacturers, it means real-time visibility, integrated processes, and scalability without the burden of maintaining on-premise infrastructure.
According to Maiza, NetSuite’s strength lies in its ability to support manufacturing in a way that aligns with operational reality—particularly for discrete manufacturers.
“NetSuite is very strong in discrete manufacturing,” she explains. “It allows you to track assemblies, work orders, and the bill of materials that go into producing finished goods.”
Manufacturers can start with basic work order and assembly management and scale into more advanced capabilities such as work-in-progress tracking and routing.
This layered approach allows organisations to adopt what they need without being forced into overly complex implementations from day one.
Crucially, NetSuite accommodates a wide range of manufacturing maturity levels.
Smaller and mid-sized manufacturers—often priced out of solutions like SAP or Oracle Fusion—can access robust ERP capabilities without excessive cost or complexity.
“You don’t have to buy everything at once,” Maiza says. “You can start small and grow into it.”
The Tangible Business Benefits
One of the first things manufacturers notice after implementing NetSuite is visibility.
Role-based dashboards provide production managers, planners, and operators with immediate access to the information that matters most to them.
“For example, a production manager can see which work orders are in place, their status, and what’s happening across departments—all in one dashboard,” says Maiza.
This visibility reduces reliance on manual updates and interdepartmental follow-ups.
Instead of calling procurement to check the status of raw materials, production teams can see it directly in the system.
This shift alone can dramatically improve collaboration and responsiveness.
NetSuite also embeds business intelligence directly into the ERP.
Unlike environments where BI tools sit separately and rely on data connectors, NetSuite dashboards update in real time as transactions occur.
“You don’t have to wait for reports to be created,” Maiza notes. “The data is already there. You just refresh the dashboard.”
From a financial perspective, this real-time insight enables manufacturers to analyse production costs more accurately. They can track material consumption, identify inefficiencies, and make informed decisions about cost optimisation.
Time savings are another major benefit. Manual reporting, reconciliations, and data consolidation are reduced significantly, freeing teams to focus on higher-value activities like process improvement and strategic planning.
Maiza’s Closing Expert Opinion
After years of helping organisations with ERP systems, Maiza’s opinion is clear: adding more systems rarely solves the problem. In fact, it often makes it worse.
“Manufacturers don’t need more tools,” she says. “They need one connected platform where everyone is working from the same data.”
NetSuite’s value lies not just in its features, but in its ability to unify operations—finance, manufacturing, inventory, and procurement—into a single source of truth.
That unification is what enables agility.
In Maiza’s view, cloud-first platforms like NetSuite from FinanSys are no longer a “nice to have.” They are becoming essential for manufacturers that want to remain competitive, responsive, and resilient in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Legacy systems may feel familiar, but familiarity should not be confused with suitability. For manufacturers serious about growth and operational excellence, the future belongs to connected platforms—not disconnected systems.
If you want to explore what NetSuite can do for you
