When your business relies on an ERP system, you already understand how valuable it can be. A centralized, real-time database that connects your processes, teams, and resources can transform efficiency across the entire organization—at least when everything is running as it should.
But when an ERP system begins to slow down, that same convenience can quickly turn into a bottleneck, hindering productivity and frustrating employees. In this post, we’ll explore some of the common causes behind ERP performance issues and share practical tips to help resolve them.
Before diving into the reasons for slowdowns, let’s first clarify what an ERP system actually is.
What Is An ERP System?
ERP stands for enterprise resource planning, a methodology that brings together people, processes, and data into a single, unified system. ERP software supports this integration by collecting and managing information across every department, all within a central database that updates in real time. The result is a coordinated environment where employees have access to accurate, up-to-date information whenever they need it.
The Central Problem
The central problem that businesses using an ERP system face is also the system’s greatest strength: As a centralized database, the system becomes comprehensive enough to envelop a great many of the business’s regular functions and processes.
This is a great strength when the system is working well.
However, the all-encompassing nature of these systems leads organizations to become dependent on the system’s stability and success.
As ERP systems grow in complexity and in usefulness, they can become slow.
When this happens, businesses suffer losses in productivity.
Top Reasons ERP Systems Run Slowly
As with any complex software system, an ERP system can run into problems for any number of reasons. Most of the time, though, problems fall into one of several categories, which we’ll discuss below.
Quick note: These programs are complex enough that only a qualified professional should begin tinkering with them. you may have such a professional on your staff, or you may need to work with a managed services provider that is qualified in this area.
As a general rule, if you doubt your ability to successfully troubleshoot the system, don’t.
Problems In The Database
- An ERP system will run poorly if the database that’s feeding it is not well-built.
- There’s an old expression among veteran coders and programmers: “garbage in, garbage out.”
- The meaning behind this phrase is that assistant can only be as good as what feeds it.
- ERP systems are built on databases. If those databases aren’t clean, the ERP system may experience a slowdown.
- Strive to keep your database code and the data within it as clean as possible.
- Of course, the larger the database, the harder it is to scrutinize every entry and every line of code.
- You may need to run and evaluate database reports and find the troublesome spots that way.
- If you don’t have anyone in-house that is qualified to evaluate databases on this level, then connect with an experienced expert who can evaluate your ERP database.
Network Slowdowns
- If your database is in great shape and you’re still dealing with a sluggish ERP system, your problem may be network related.
- Run some diagnostics on your network performance to see if there are any obvious problem spots.
- It may be that your slowdown is the fault of the network infrastructure that’s connecting workstations to the ERP system’s server.
- You may find instead that you simply don’t have the bandwidth that you need at some other point in the network.
- ERP systems can be fairly bandwidth-intensive at points, so you’ll especially want to check your bandwidth if you are new to ERP software.
Insufficient Hardware
Another issue that can affect ERP system performance is insufficient hardware.
This is usually the most expensive way to go about fixing system issues, so we highly recommend investigating the first two scenarios first.
If the database and network check out, however, it’s time to take a hard look at your hardware capabilities.
Make sure your server has both the storage space and the processing power necessary to run this software and process these databases.
Ensure that individual workstations have the processing power they need to interact with the system.
Evaluate all the weakest pieces of hardware in your system, looking for the ones that may not be equipped to handle the load you’re placing on them.
Conclusion
Most ERP system slowdowns can be solved by addressing the three issues above. If you’re still not getting the performance you need, contact us for an in-depth review of your systems.
