Three Big Manufacturing Problems and How to Solve Them with Odoo
If you run a manufacturing business, this picture probably feels familiar: you arrive at work in the morning and spend the whole day putting out fires — not one, but several at once. You cannot recall which order is at which stage, you do not know for sure whether there is enough raw material in the warehouse, and you track what your employees did all day only "by eye".
This situation is no accident. Most manufacturing companies constantly struggle with three core problems:
- No planning — it is unclear when orders start and when they should finish
- No resource control — raw material consumption and warehouse stock are not tracked accurately
- No workforce control — who worked how much and how many units they produced is not systematised
In this article, DeepVision's Odoo expert Abdulloh Najmiddinov — drawing on 8 years of hands-on manufacturing experience — uses a real case to show how each of these three problems can be solved with the Odoo Manufacturing (MRP) module.
Problem #1: Several Customers, Several Deadlines at Once
Imagine: your sales managers signed contracts with three customers in a single day. But each customer's requirement is different:
- Customer 1 expects the order in 5 days
- Customer 2 expects the order in 3 days
- Customer 3 expects the order in 7 days
Which order should go into production first? Keeping this calculation accurate on paper or in Excel is nearly impossible — and a single mistake can cost you a customer.
The Solution: Odoo's Planning Feature
As soon as an order is accepted from a customer, it goes straight into production. Using Odoo's planning feature, sales managers place all orders into the system sequentially, aligned with their deadlines.
As a result, as the head of the company you:
- See in real time which order is at which stage — on a single platform
- Control an individual delivery deadline for every customer
- Automatically sequence orders by priority
Problem #2: Calculating Raw Material Usage and Stock by Hand
In a manufacturing company, every unit of product consumes a certain amount of raw material. If this calculation is not automated, the probability of error is very high — especially as order volumes grow.
A Practical Example: a Beverage Manufacturer
The real example shown in the video — a soft drinks producer called "Fresh Drinks" — demonstrates how the Odoo MRP module works:
For each product, the BOM (Bill of Materials) is entered once: it defines exactly how much raw material (water, sugar, flavouring, packaging and so on) goes into one bottle of lemonade or cola.
The next time an order comes in — whether for 50 units, 100 units or more — the system:
- Automatically calculates the required raw materials and deducts the right components from the warehouse
- Shows a separate production time for each product type (for example, cola or fanta)
- Schedules production based on the deadline — ensuring orders are completed on time
Automatic Production Time Calculation
If you know the approximate or exact time it takes to produce one unit, Odoo automatically multiplies that figure for any quantity (1,000 units, 2,000 units and so on) and calculates the total order time. This turns planning from paper guesswork into real numbers.
How a Manufacturing Order Is Created
In practice the process looks like this:
- A sales manager or production specialist enters the required product and quantity into the system
- The order is confirmed and sent to production
- Employees record the quantity they produced in the system
- The system automatically calculates completion percentage per machine and the finish time
As a result, the director can see at any moment exactly when each order started and when it will finish.
Problem #3: No Objective Way to Measure Employee Performance
One of the most common questions in manufacturing companies is: "Are my employees really working efficiently?" To answer it accurately you need numbers — not guesses.
The Solution: Reports for Any Period
One of Odoo's most convenient features is the ability to view data for any time range: a year, a month, a week or even a single hour.
With this feature you can find out:
- How much time each employee worked over a given period
- How many units each employee produced
- How to calculate payroll automatically based on hours worked or units produced — or export the data to Excel
You can also track performance for any employee, for any day or year — which makes it possible to evaluate and motivate people objectively, based on numbers.
From Practice: What Changes After Implementing Odoo?
Drawing on 8 years of manufacturing experience, the DeepVision team notes that it is precisely these three problems — the lack of planning, resource control and workforce tracking — that keep many companies searching for a system that brings all modules (manufacturing, sales, inventory) together in one place.
After Odoo goes live, the remark heard most often in conversations with clients is that production errors drop sharply. Previously it was common for a worker to finish a part, discover later that a mistake had been made at some stage, and then spend another three or four days reworking that same part. After implementing Odoo such situations practically disappear, because every stage is precisely controlled in the system.
Video: See the Odoo Manufacturing Module in Action
In the video below, Odoo expert Abdulloh Najmiddinov walks step by step through the planning feature, the MRP module and employee reports on a real interface.
▶ Video: Odoo Manufacturing in action
Conclusion
If in your company:
- It is unclear which stage your orders are at,
- Raw material usage and warehouse stock are calculated by hand,
- You cannot objectively measure employee performance —
all of these problems are solved in one system with the Odoo Manufacturing (MRP) module. Planning, resource management and workforce control — all on a single platform, in real time.
Does your company face similar problems? Contact the DeepVision team — together we will implement the Odoo solution that fits you, backed by 8 years of hands-on experience.