Wednesday, August 11, 2004

Made2Manage sees bright future in plastics

Made2Manage (M2M), a Tier III ERP vendor, is acquiring DTR Software, a specialty ERP vendor focused exclusively on the plastics industry. DTR's package, known as The Manufacturing Manager (TMM) will be re-branded as a separate Made2Manage Systems product.

I short listed and evaluated DTR's product a number of years ago, and at the time I liked what I saw. Although DTR is a small, niche player, it definitely has an appeal for small plastics manufacturers. It has specific functionality for finite scheduling and other issues unique to plastics. As I recall, it even had a solution for scheduling fixtures separately from the molding machine, something you often don't see even in higher end packages.

I'm generally a fan of industry-specific solutions like DTR. For small software application vendors, I think the secret is to focus on one or two narrow vertical markets. If Made2Manage, itself a small player, can provide better marketing, DTR's product might have a good future. The company plans to turn DTR's Florida headquarters into an M2M office. It also intends to keep the executive team and most of DTR's staff in place. At the same time, M2M is promising to increase support for current DTR customers. All are good signs that M2M intends to grow the business.

A press release is on the M2M web site.

Related posts
Made2Manage going private

No comments: