Open source manufacturing ERP gets 600,000 downloads

OpenBravo COO Josep Mitja says: “We are the number one open source project – now localised for 45 different countries. We have accumulated 600,000 downloads and that’s very high traffic, considering it’s a complex piece of software.” Mitja claims the system competes head on with Microsoft Navision for manufacturers in the £5m to 500m turnover range. “The system covers everything from procurement to manufacturing, warehousing, logistics, sales and all the accounting processes, as well as basic business intelligence and CRM [customer relationship management] functionalities,” he says. Questioned more closely, however, it transpires that discrete manufacturing is only supported up to MRP 1. “We need to catch up. This is a roadmap, with more functionality on the way,” says Mitja. “We are growing the platform, responding to the needs of our clients – and there’s no MRP II in open source yet.” However, as far as Mitja is concerned, the real deal is the launch of the OpenBravo network “and the first ERP in a box”. Although even that doesn’t appear to be quite accurate: “Our business model is traditional: we sell through a network of system integrators, because these systems need to be implemented. They don’t work out of the box.” On the other hand, the system is being sold through the OpenBravo network, with subscriptions for OpenBravo ERP as an appliance package. “They get the CD and with one click the full stack gets installed – operating system, database and the application. They also get the full update service for the full stack,” he says. And they get the OpenBravo open source community. Manufacturing users so far include one company making omelettes and another with 14 workshops for small assembly projects – both in Spain and both apparently running MRP, works planning and the rest.