When reviewing vendor ERP offerings, many manufacturers focus solely on system features and fail to consider equally important variables such as maintenance and support. Of course, this approach can set the stage for costly post-implementation problems. To avoid these issues, pinpoint software providers with robust maintenance and support services and take internal steps to make sure your solution is updated and your employees know how to unlock its full potential.

Lay the groundwork for support success
Once you've selected a vendor with a solution that meets your current and future organizational needs, take a close look at the post-adoption offerings within the service-level agreement. First, see how long they plan to support your solution. Many adopters in the manufacturing industry find that longer service contracts yield more discounts and are generally more cost-effective, TechTarget reported. Then, move onto the specifics.

Most vendors offer a variety of ongoing professional services to clients in need of ERP updates and support. These are billed on an hourly basis. Luckily, most vendors are willing to negotiate the rates but make sure these services fit your expectations before discussing money. Additionally, dive into the minutiae and work with your solution providers to define essential service-related metrics.

"What is considered a severe issue? A non-critical issue? You need a common understanding. It's not that you want the SLA there so you can hit your vendor over head with it, or if you have a penalty clause so you can extract money by triggering a penalty – you want to avoid having to trigger a penalty clause," Howard Kiewe, a senior researcher at the Info-Tech Research Group, explained in an interview with TechTarget.

Consider third-party support
If you're unsatisfied with the maintenance and support services your vendor offers, consider contracting a third-party to take over these tasks, Enterprise Apps Today suggested. In recent years, many adopters have turned to these companies, looking to trim costs or maintain highly customized systems with components that vendors simply won't support. Of course, there are drawbacks to this approach.

For instance, these third-party service providers are required by law to respect the rights of original equipment manufacturers but some don't. If you're considering this approach, be sure to get assurance from your third-party support provider that they are adhering to intellectual property laws. To do this, request internal audit results or write an indemnity clause into your SLA. Of course, you could avoid this situation altogether by finding a third-party service provider that's willing to partner with your vendor.

Develop a long-term maintenance and support strategy
In addition to securing actual maintenance and support services, develop an internal strategy for supporting your solution, CIO advised. Manufacturers that fail to develop and implement such plans often find themselves overspending on support or, even worse, working with outdated or broken software.

"Customers not conducting preventative maintenance are not taking full advantage of their ERP investment and their maintenance dollars," Marco Valencia, vice president of cloud management and company innovation at SAP, told the magazine. "By not applying maintenance, their systems will quickly become obsolete (from a technical perspective) as will their business processes."

When putting together your strategy, be sure to forecast organizational changes and plan system maintenance to support these shifts. Additionally, keep your vendor or third-party maintenance and support provider updated to ensure that they are prepared to lend a hand when changes are necessary.

Provide ongoing staff training
To unlock the full potential of your manufacturing ERP and achieve system continuity, you should provide ongoing to training programs for end-users, ERP Focus suggested. This will improve employee efficiency and make it easier for you to fix system issues, as well-trained users can spot problems and report them. 

As you develop your employee ERP training program, include employee protocols for escalating platform issues or requesting support. You don't want your users sending trouble tickets to vendors when they could instead contact the internal information technology staff.