Manufacturing in South Africa is a margin business — most ERP environments don't treat it that way.
We consult before we configure — mapping the pressures on your shop floor, costing team and finance function, then tuning ERP to protect margin, tighten traceability and give leadership numbers they can trust.
What actually goes wrong inside Manufacturing operations.
Before we recommend any platform, we make sure the team understands the day-to-day pressures your manufacturing leaders are working under.
Standard vs actual costing drift
Routings, scrap rates and overhead recoveries set years ago — quietly eroding gross margin every time raw materials or energy costs move.
BOM and routing complexity
Engineering changes, sub-assemblies and alternates managed in spreadsheets, then re-keyed into production — with the errors that follow.
WIP and inventory you can't see
Capital tied up in stock between operations, in transit between plants, or sitting against jobs nobody has closed.
Traceability under audit pressure
Batch, lot and serial traceability now demanded by retailers, regulators and recall procedures — beyond what most legacy systems were designed for.
Production planning vs reality
MRP runs in one system, scheduling in another, and the supervisor's whiteboard overrides both — leaving finance to reconcile after the fact.
Multi-site, multi-entity sprawl
Plants, warehouses, distribution and toll-manufacturing entities all on slightly different versions of the same processes.
What the board, the auditor and the regulator are asking for.
- › Gross margin by product / line / customer
- › Standard vs actual cost variance %
- › OEE, scrap rate, first-pass yield
- › Inventory days and WIP value
- › On-time-in-full (OTIF) delivery
Costing variance the CFO can defend
Material, labour and overhead variance reported by product, work centre and shift — not buried in a month-end journal.
BBBEE and local content reporting
Procurement, supplier and ownership data captured at transaction level so verification doesn't become a yearly fire drill.
Traceability evidence on demand
From batch to customer in minutes, not days — for recall, retailer audits and quality investigations.
OEE and throughput visibility
Production performance reported in the same system finance reports out of — so the numbers don't disagree in the exec meeting.
Outcomes our Manufacturing clients have realised.
How Lorge engages with Manufacturing clients.
Walk the floor first
We start with the value stream — receiving, production, dispatch — and quantify the cost of today's friction before we touch a system.
Design for the margin equation
Costing model, BOM structure and reporting are configured around how the business actually defends margin — not the vendor's demo flow.
Stay through optimisation
We remain accountable through stabilisation, costing tune-ups and continuous improvement — for years, not just go-live.
Where Sage fits - selected based on the outcome, not the brand.
Primary recommendation for manufacturers. Built for multi-site, multi-process operations with serious costing, traceability, BOM, MRP and inventory complexity - finance, production, procurement and supply chain in one system.
Proven mid-market fit for single and multi-site manufacturers with established operations and a controlled growth path.
Payroll, time and attendance and HR integrated with manufacturing - shift, overtime and BCEA compliance built in.
Software tailored for your manufacturing operations.
Lorge has supported South African manufacturers for over 40 years as a Sage Platinum Business Partner — discrete and process manufacturers across food, beverage, chemicals, engineering and FMCG.