Selection goes wrong when it starts with demos. Vendors are good at demos. Start instead with the specific decisions your plant needs the system to support.
Define requirements from failure modes
Write requirements as the problems you need solved — 'we must see projected shortages twelve weeks out by buyer' — rather than as a feature checklist. Feature lists all look the same across vendors; failure modes do not.
Script the demonstrations
Give every vendor the same script using your own part numbers, your own BOM and a real order scenario. Watch them enter the data. The gap between a scripted demo and a canned demo is where the truth lives.
Cost the whole thing
- License or subscription over five years.
- Implementation services and data migration.
- Integration to accounting, CAD or EDI.
- Internal time — the largest and most frequently ignored line.
- Training and ongoing support.
References that mean something
Ask for references at your size, in your process type, who went live in the last two years — and ask them what they would do differently.