The problems manufacturers are actually carrying in 2026

Plants run MES and ERP platforms that are decades old, surrounded by hundreds of custom applications. Downtime in continuous processes is unacceptable, so a big-bang cutover is not available. Migration has to be modular, running old and new in parallel until each scope is proven.

When an underlying database or platform reaches end of life, every application built on it becomes a deadline. The work is rarely the new system — it is untangling what the old one quietly does for ERP, QMS, PLM, MES and SCADA scopes.

The people who know why a routing has that exception are retiring. Capturing that knowledge as data Flows and explicit rules is the only durable form of transfer; documentation alone has never survived a generation.

Scheduling engines slow down as volumes rise, often because they are doing transformation work that should happen upstream. Moving calculations out of the engine has repeatedly bought years of life from software that was about to be replaced at enormous cost.

Another platform purchase is a hard case to make when the last one is not fully adopted. The realistic route is value first — close a specific gap in data or experience on the systems already owned — then consolidate deliberately, on your own timetable, without lock-in.