Excel, paper notes and the one person who knows

Why this report

Most of what gets written about the problems of manufacturing companies comes from system vendors and consultants. The numbers show it: on LinkedIn, practitioners from plants write around 9% of the posts that describe a specific problem, and the share is similar in Poland and in the German-speaking countries. I wanted to hear the other side: how people from production halls and production offices describe these problems in their own words, when nobody hands them a survey or ready-made answers. Such descriptions exist on the open web. The most candid opinions come from software user groups, industry forums and job adverts, in which companies write their problems straight into the list of duties for a future employee.

How I gathered the material

The review covered two markets: Poland, and Germany, Austria and Switzerland. I gathered the material on 28-30 September 2026: posts and threads from groups and forums, LinkedIn discussions and job adverts. I used AI to collect and analyse this material. I set out eight hypotheses about the most common problems in work organisation (marked H1-H8 in the report) and assessed the strength of evidence for each one. I then set the findings alongside figures from public studies, including Statistics Poland (GUS), Staufen, Trovarit and APA Group. Posts from closed groups are described without naming the group, people appear only by their role, and companies from job adverts only by their industry.

What came out of it: four conclusions

The same two problems come out on top in both markets. The first is a production schedule in Excel that only one person fully understands. The second is an ERP (the system meant to run the whole company) of which only a small part is used, with Excel spreadsheets, Access databases and paper notes living alongside it.

In Poland the gap starts with the absence of a system. According to Statistics Poland (GUS), 42.8% of manufacturing companies with at least 10 employees had an ERP in 2025. Small companies bolt production and warehouse management onto their sales or accounting software.

In Germany, Austria and Switzerland ERP is the standard - it appears in 88% of job adverts for production planners. Even so, 54% of industrial companies in these countries keep data in Excel lists alongside their ERP (Staufen study, 2024).

People stir up the most emotion. Resistance to logging work, inspections done for the audit, technicians unwilling to write down what they know, one person in the whole plant who handles the system. A tool that adds writing loses to a notebook.

These four conclusions are only where the report begins. Inside, among other things, you will find why companies put reconciling system stock with what is actually on the shelf into the list of duties in job adverts, and why a shift handover in Poland looks completely different from one in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

What is inside

The report is an A4 PDF with four charts. It opens with the section “In brief”, then I describe what I examined and how, show the problem map and discuss the eight problems in detail - each with an assessment of the strength of evidence and a comparison of the two markets. Next come the chapters “People before tools” and “Other problems worth noting”, an overview of the places where practitioners talk about their problems, and the figures from public studies. The whole thing closes with the practical part: six steps for your plant, meaning where to start putting things in order. You will find that part only in the report.

Download the report

Leave your e-mail address in the form below and confirm it in the message I send you - the report will arrive straight after confirmation. The PDF is available in six language versions: Polish, German, English, French, Spanish and Italian.

If any of these problems sounds familiar and you would like to talk about your own plant, write to me or book a meeting.