"it depends". Each system has its own niche or use, although ERP is typically seen as the successor to MRP. (For MRP, do you really mean MRP II, or Manufacturing Resources Planning?) Agile and Windchill are PLM systems, meant to control documents and revisions, as well as BOMS. They provide good control of the engineering/product planning requirements, as well as "front-end" interfaces to ERP/MRP systems, such as Oracle and ASK MANMAN. (Not sure of MANMAN is still around, been out of touch with mfg/eng stuff since January.) Used Agile, excellent tool for engineering/technical types, IMHO. Comes also as web-based tool, allows for use by CMs and corporate divisions worldwide. ERP/MRP good to use for production/sales/inventory/purchasing/product planning. Provides tight control over mfg resources. If you have $$$, Oracle has ERP system that ties very well with Agile, probably since Oracle bought Agile a few years ago. Never used Oracle, used Agile. MANMAN was okay, had nice features, but version I used was only dumb terminal based. Mebbe GUI version is out there someplace? SAP another big player in ERP/MRP systems, heard mostly good things about SAP. My 2 cents worth. Roger From: DesignerCouncil [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Silicon Valley Chapter - IPC Designers Council Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 12:10 PM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: [DC] ERP/MRP/PLM... What's in your wallet - er - What do you use? ERP = Enterprise Resource Planning MRP = Material Requirement Planning PLM = Product Lifecycle Management Examples: Agile, Arena, SAP, Windchill, others (fill in) I am seeking input from the Designer Community who interface with these kinds of programs. What is your overall confidence/satisfaction level with these programs? Which one's work best? Feel free to share your success stories. Bob McCreight, C.I.D. IPC Designers Council Silicon Valley Chapter ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8e To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil To temporarily stop/(start) delivery of DesignerCouncil for vacation breaks send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL) Search previous postings at: http://listserv.ipc.org/archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext. 2815 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DesignerCouncil Mail List provided as a free service by IPC using LISTSERV 1.8d To unsubscribe, send a message to [log in to unmask] with following text in the BODY (NOT the subject field): SIGNOFF DesignerCouncil. To temporarily stop/(restart) delivery of DesignerCouncil send: SET DesignerCouncil NOMAIL/(MAIL) Search previous postings at: www.ipc.org > On-Line Resources & Databases > E-mail Archives Please visit IPC web site http://www.ipc.org/contentpage.asp?Pageid=4.3.16 for additional information, or contact Keach Sasamori at [log in to unmask] or 847-615-7100 ext.2815 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------