December 15, 2025
Manufacturing companies rely on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) to monitor production equipment—tracking machine uptime, production rates, and quality metrics. But getting this operational data into your ERP system where finance and operations teams can use it? That’s where things get complicated.
Most manufacturers struggle with disconnected systems. Production data lives in PLCs. Financial data lives in ERP. The gap creates blind spots, delays, and manual work that slows decision-making.
Here are the five biggest challenges manufacturing companies face when connecting PLC data to ERP systems.
PLCs output data in industrial protocols like Modbus, OPC UA, or EtherNet/IP. ERP systems expect structured data in SQL databases or REST APIs. The formats don’t match.
The Problem: PLCs communicate using industrial protocols designed for real-time control, while ERPs expect relational database structures. Raw PLC data often lacks business context—no part numbers, work orders, or cost centers.
The Impact: Without proper translation, you can’t automatically update production orders or track material consumption. Finance teams manually reconcile production reports with ERP records, creating delays and errors.
The Solution: You need middleware that translates PLC protocols into ERP-compatible formats. This requires understanding both industrial automation and ERP data structures—expertise most IT teams don’t have.
PLCs generate data continuously—every second. ERP systems process data in batches—hourly, daily, or monthly. This mismatch creates timing issues.
The Problem: Production data changes constantly, but ERP systems aren’t designed for real-time updates. Too frequent updates can overwhelm ERP databases.
The Impact: You either get stale data in your ERP or overwhelm your system with constant updates. Neither works well for manufacturing operations needing accurate, timely data.
The Solution: Implement intelligent buffering and aggregation. Collect PLC data in real-time, but batch and summarize it before sending to ERP. This requires custom logic to determine what needs real-time sync vs. what can wait.
PLC data is raw and incomplete. A production count doesn’t automatically include part numbers, work orders, or cost centers—information your ERP needs.
The Problem: PLCs track physical events (counts, temperatures, speeds) but not business context. Missing or incorrect data creates errors in ERP records.
The Impact: Incorrect production counts lead to wrong inventory levels. Missing work order associations mean you can’t track job costs. Invalid data creates reconciliation nightmares for finance teams.
The Solution: Build data enrichment and validation layers. Map PLC tags to ERP master data and validate data before it enters ERP. This requires deep understanding of both production processes and ERP data models.
Manufacturing floors have different network requirements than office IT systems. Connecting PLCs to ERP means bridging industrial networks with corporate networks—a security and reliability challenge.
The Problem: Production networks prioritize reliability and real-time performance. Corporate networks prioritize security and standard protocols. Firewalls and network segmentation complicate integration.
The Impact: Network issues disrupt production monitoring or ERP updates. Security concerns may prevent direct connections. IT teams struggle to balance operational needs with security requirements.
The Solution: Design a secure integration architecture using industrial gateways that bridge networks safely. Implement proper network segmentation, encryption, and failover mechanisms. This requires expertise in both industrial networking and enterprise IT security.
A single manufacturing line might have dozens of PLCs. A large facility might have hundreds. Each integration point needs configuration, monitoring, and maintenance.
The Problem: Each PLC-to-ERP connection requires custom configuration. Changes to production processes or ERP systems break integrations. No standardized approach means maintenance becomes a nightmare.
The Impact: Initial integration might work, but as you add production lines or upgrade systems, integrations break. IT teams spend more time fixing integrations than improving them.
The Solution: Build a scalable integration architecture with reusable components, standardized data models, and centralized monitoring. Design for change—make it easy to add new PLCs and modify mappings without rewriting code.
When PLC data doesn’t flow into ERP, manufacturing companies face delayed financial reporting, inventory discrepancies, cost tracking gaps, and manual reconciliation work. Operations and finance teams work with different data, slowing down decisions.
For finance leaders, this shows up as unreliable WIP and finished goods values, unexplained margin swings, and stock variances that are only discovered at month-end. Without trusted, timely production data in ERP, it’s impossible to confidently manage working capital, unit economics, and capacity planning.
Connecting PLC data to ERP requires understanding your production processes, ERP data models, network infrastructure, and business requirements. It’s not a simple plug-and-play project.
Our Approach:
We start with a data audit to understand what PLC data you’re collecting, how it maps to your ERP structure, what gaps exist in your current integration, and what business processes depend on this data.
Then we develop a 3-phase planned approach:
Phase 1: Foundation — Assess your PLC infrastructure and ERP capabilities, design the integration architecture, and build proof-of-concept for critical data flows.
Phase 2: Core Integration — Implement data translation and enrichment layers, connect key PLCs to ERP, and establish data validation and error handling.
Phase 3: Scale and Optimize — Expand to additional production lines, optimize data flows for performance, and build monitoring and maintenance processes.
This phased approach reduces risk, proves value early, and ensures the solution scales as your manufacturing operations grow.
If you’re struggling with disconnected PLC and ERP systems, book a demo to see how we can help bridge the gap between your production floor and your financial systems. To understand the broader methodology we use across finance and operations, explore our How It Works overview of the full data product lifecycle.
