Master data cleanup to stabilise ERP (products, locations, vendors, BoMs)
Client
Manufacturing and warehousing businesses using ERP for purchasing and planning.
The challenge
Poor master data breaks purchasing and planning. When product records, locations, vendors, and BoMs are inconsistent, the ERP cannot produce reliable signals. Teams then revert to manual workarounds.
What we did
We stabilised ERP performance by cleaning up master data and introducing standards.
Standards introduced:
• Naming conventions
• Mandatory fields
How we prevented relapse
• Clear owners of information were assigned
• Ongoing responsibility to maintain data quality was made explicit, so master data did not become “everyone’s problem and no one’s job”
Results
• Purchasing and planning became more reliable because the system inputs were consistent
• Teams spent less time correcting errors downstream
Why it matters
Master data is not an admin task. It is operational infrastructure. When it is owned and maintained, the ERP becomes a tool for decision-making rather than a source of confusion.
