Building products manufacturers, construction suppliers, and job-based manufacturers operate across a hybrid model of manufacturing and project delivery.
Many businesses produce components in a workshop while managing jobs like a project business — with custom designs, staged delivery, labour-intensive production, subcontracting, and milestone-based invoicing.
As operations grow, this complexity creates challenges:
Abel ERP provides a fully integrated platform that connects quoting, design, procurement, production, labour, invoicing, and financials — giving complete visibility across the entire job lifecycle.
As building products and project-based manufacturers grow, common challenges emerge:
These issues create risk in both financial control and project delivery, especially in long-running or complex jobs.
These businesses often move from design-led quoting into production and installation workflows, requiring continuity across departments.
Abel ERP connects manufacturing and project scheduling into one coordinated workflow, rather than managing them separately.
Labour is often one of the largest cost components, making accurate time capture critical for true job costing and margin control.
In many organisations, revenue is driven by progress and milestones rather than product dispatch, requiring a different invoicing model.
This ensures all costs remain connected to the primary job, even when work is split across suppliers or processes.
Many businesses operate both manufacturing and service models within the same organisation, requiring unified workflows.
Abel ERP provides live visibility of profitability by job, improving commercial control.
DTS (Dairy Technology Services) operated across manufacturing and job-based service work, delivering dairy infrastructure and automation solutions across New Zealand. Following a corporate divestment and the need to modernise operations, the business required a new system to replace inefficient processes, improve visibility, and support growth.
To support this transformation, DTS implemented Abel to replace legacy systems and automate workflows across manufacturing, service, and customer operations, integrating financial and operational data within a single system.
“Automating our processes has made us so much more efficient. We now have the traceability and visibility we needed across our business.”
Read the full case study here.
These outcomes reflect how operations run when quoting, production, job costing, subcontracting, and financial data are managed within a single, integrated system:
The most effective ERP system is one that can combine manufacturing and project-based workflows in a single platform.
Businesses in this sector don’t operate as pure manufacturers — they manage quoting, design, procurement, production, labour, subcontracting, and invoicing across long-running jobs.
Abel ERP is designed for this complexity, providing a fully integrated system that connects these processes and gives real-time visibility across the entire job lifecycle.
Job-based manufacturing differs because work is structured around projects, not just products.
Instead of producing standard items for stock, businesses often:
This means traditional manufacturing systems often lack the flexibility required.
Abel ERP supports both manufacturing and job-based operations together, ensuring production, costing, and invoicing all align with the project structure.
Yes.
Abel ERP connects the full lifecycle from:
This removes the need to move between disconnected systems or spreadsheets, creating one continuous workflow across the business.
Abel ERP allows businesses to invoice based on work completed rather than product dispatch.
This includes:
This is critical in construction and project environments where revenue is tied to progress rather than finished goods.
Yes. Abel ERP supports retentions as part of staged invoicing and progress claim-based workflows, enabling businesses to track withheld amounts within the overall project value.
This is particularly important for organisations working under construction-style contract models or regulated payment environments.
Abel ERP enables direct labour and time capture against jobs, ensuring that labour, often the largest cost component, is accurately recorded and controlled.
The system brings together:
This creates a complete, real-time view of job cost and profitability, rather than relying on fragmented tracking across systems or spreadsheets.
Yes. Abel ERP supports:
This ensures all internal and external work remains connected within a single job cost structure, providing accurate cost and margin visibility.
Abel ERP allows businesses to manage variations within the job structure, ensuring that changes to scope, materials, or labour are captured and reflected in:
This prevents cost leakage and helps maintain accurate margin visibility even as projects evolve.
Yes.
Many businesses in this sector operate a mix of:
Abel ERP supports all of these within one system, including:
This eliminates the need for separate systems for manufacturing and service operations.
Abel ERP provides real-time visibility across all jobs, including:
By consolidating all cost and revenue data into one system, businesses can monitor profitability continuously rather than waiting for end-of-project reporting.
Many businesses rely on:
This creates:
Abel ERP replaces these disconnected processes with a single integrated platform, improving data accuracy, reducing manual work, and providing real-time operational visibility.
Abel ERP provides real-time, integrated data across the entire business, including:
With all data captured in one system, business leaders can make faster, more informed decisions based on accurate and current information.
If you are reviewing your current processes, an on-site walkthrough and demonstration can help you see how Abel would operate in your business.
We will walk through your current processes and demonstrate how Abel operates using your processes and data, covering:
Request an on-site walkthrough and system demonstration based on your current and potential future state.