If you are looking for an ERP for your furniture factory, you soon run into a problem: most ERP systems are built for companies that buy and sell finished items. Furniture doesn't work that way. Every order is different, every piece of furniture breaks down into dozens of parts — each with its board, its edgebanding, its machining and its hardware — and that information has to travel without errors from the design office to the panel saw, from the CNC to the edgebander, and from assembly to the truck.
A generic ERP can be adapted, with time, consulting and patience. But adapting a program built for something else means paying to fight with it. Before you choose, ask it these seven questions. If it says no to several of them, it is not an ERP for making furniture.
1. Does it understand the furniture breakdown from the quote?
In the furniture industry, the quote is already manufacturing. If you don't know which parts, which board, how many meters of edgebanding and which machining a piece of furniture needs, you don't know what it costs.
An ERP for furniture manufacturers must calculate the quote from the parts list (the bill of materials, or BOM): components, machining, transport and assembly. And it must keep that parts list when the quote becomes an order, so nobody re-types what has already been calculated. That is how MobiTech BOM quoting works.
2. Does it talk to your design office?
The parts list is born in the design. If the ERP doesn't receive it directly, someone copies it by hand — and that copy is where the errors that later show up in the workshop come from: a swapped dimension, a forgotten edge, a part missing at assembly.
MobiTech is designed for seamless integration with TopSolid'Wood: the parts list goes from the design into the ERP without re-typing anything.
3. Does it optimize board cutting?
Board is one of the biggest cost items in a piece of furniture, and every badly used sheet is money that ends up in the skip.
The ERP should include a cutting optimizer that groups parts by material and thickness, respects grain direction and makes use of offcuts — and does it with what it already knows about the order, without exporting lists to another program. MobiTech integrates a board cutting optimization engine with three modes: single, batch and from production.
4. Does it reach the machine?
A perfect parts list is of little use if it then has to be keyed by hand into the panel saw or the CNC. The ERP has to generate the files your machines understand: the cutting list for the panel saw and the machining programs for the CNC.
With Tech Conversor, MPR files are converted into your CNC's native format, in batches and without editing programs by hand.
5. Does it know where every part is on the shop floor?
This is where most ERP systems stop at the workshop door: they know what was sold and what was invoiced, but not what happens in between.
A furniture factory needs an MES, a manufacturing execution system that tracks every part through the production phases. In MobiTech MES, every part carries its own QR code: the operator scans it on a tablet when entering and leaving each phase, and the office sees the status of every order in real time — no phone calls, no walks around the plant.
6. Does it really control materials?
Boards, edgebanding, hardware: if the ERP doesn't know what each order needs and what is in stock, purchasing is done by eye. Then either material is missing on cutting day, or idle stock sits around taking up space.
Look for an ERP that calculates the material each order needs, manages the warehouse and prepares purchasing from those needs.
7. Can your whole team use it?
An ERP only the manager understands is useless. In the office people work on full screens; in the workshop, with a tablet and their hands busy. The program has to adapt to each workstation, not the other way round.
And if your team or your customers speak several languages, the program must too: MobiTech works in Spanish, English, Italian, French and German, with real-time language switching.
The 7 questions at a glance
| Question | What the ERP must do |
|---|---|
| 1. Quote | Calculate from the parts list: parts, edgebanding, machining, transport and assembly |
| 2. Design office | Receive the parts list from the design without re-typing |
| 3. Cutting | Optimize boards by material and thickness, with grain and offcuts |
| 4. Machines | Generate the files for the panel saw and the CNC |
| 5. Shop floor | Track every part by phase with an MES and QR codes |
| 6. Materials | Calculate needs, manage warehouse and purchasing |
| 7. Team | Serve office and workshop, each in their own language |
A furniture ERP isn't adapted: it's chosen
The difference between a generic ERP and one built for furniture isn't in the feature list, but in the thread that ties the features together: the same parts list that calculates the quote is the one that optimizes cutting, generates the machine programs and tracks every part on the shop floor. When that thread breaks, someone sews it back by hand — and that's where errors, delays and re-made parts come from.
MobiTech ERP + MES is not an adapted generic ERP: it is a system built from scratch to solve the real problems of furniture manufacturers. If you want to see how it answers these seven questions with your own furniture, request a demo with your own files.