Back in 2003, I did a research for a customer which want to unify its ERP platform ( SAP, BPCS, BAAN ) to a low cost solution. They are making parts for TVs so you understand why they want to cut the cost on ERP. Axapta 3.0 (the flagship of MS ERP fleet) at that time was the only one on the short list. After our research, we listed 12 key points that are crucial for a global manufacturer of that size that Axapta lacks. Now I probably can remember some.
1. Multi-plant planning (MRP/DRP combined planning)
2. Supplier consignment and customer consignment
3. Repetitive manufacturing
4. Customer and Supplier release managment
5. Kanban production
6. Engineering change management
7. Reporting in the manufacturing area is less relevant than QAD.
We gave the Microsoft guys the list and got their confirmation. As a result, the orginal decision is reversed and QAD is selected instead according to our recommendation.
Still, I feel Axapta has an impressive user interface, good integration with MS producitivity tools and it is very flexible in characteristics management. It is also very userfriendly in daily operations like order handling, subcon processing, inventory transactions. For a small-sized manufacturer, Axapta is a good solution. But for a manufacturer over that size, it is too small.
At that time, I also looked into its customization environment, it uses something called X++ to develop the logic and interface. It 's something like Java. After looking into it in detail, I believed that it is a huge setback to build business logic using object-oriented language. It is a nightmare to have so many inherited classes to handle the business logic and you have to instantiate the classes before using it, sometimes you find a lot of static classes or static methods. It may sounds fancy but it is stupid. I always worried about its performance.
I have to say, after that I did not have a chance to look at Axapta or other MS ERP package. So my comment is only valid at the point of 2003
