Is your production line losing steam?
Relying on legacy systems and manual tracking makes it incredibly hard to see what’s really happening on your factory floor.
This inefficiency leads to missed production targets and costly errors, making it tough to stay competitive and protect your profit margins.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that manufacturing output per hour decreased by 0.2% in 2023. These small productivity losses add up over time, directly impacting your bottom line.
But the right software fixes this. It helps you gain control over your operations and spot inefficiencies before they become major problems.
Speaking of optimizing operations with industry-specific software, you might also find my guide on best patient engagement software helpful.
In this guide, I’ll show you the best plastic industry software to optimize production. We will explore tools that unify data from materials to finished goods.
You’ll learn how to boost quality control and get the actionable insights needed to scale your manufacturing business effectively and with confidence.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary:
| # | Software | Rating | Best For |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Dassault Systèmes → | Scaling plastic manufacturers | |
| 2 | Plex → | Growing plastic manufacturers | |
| 3 | CyFrame → | Small to medium processors | |
| 4 | Epicor → | Mid-sized plastic manufacturers | |
| 5 | Infor → | Mid-sized scaling manufacturers |
1. Dassault Systèmes
Struggling with fragmented data and slow innovation?
Dassault Systèmes offers the 3DEXPERIENCE platform, a powerful solution designed to transform your product development and manufacturing processes. This means you can bring together all aspects of your business in one place, increasing collaboration and accelerating innovation. The platform helps you embed agility amidst uncertainty by adopting data-driven approaches.
This allows you to move beyond legacy systems.
Dassault Systèmes helps you reinvent manufacturing in the experience economy. You can modernize your product development using virtual twin experiences that drive innovation. This single platform combines diverse talents, breaking traditional silos to empower your organization to invent, learn, produce, and trade in entirely new ways. For instance, Electrolux Group leverages DELMIA Apriso, their Manufacturing Execution System (MES), to meet future challenges.
This platform helps you revolutionize workflows through its social, collaborative, and information intelligence applications, from design to delivery. You also get 3D modeling and simulating applications, and expertise in creating virtual twins of products and supply chains, ensuring efficiency and transparency.
Optimize your production and insights.
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Key features:
- Virtual Twin Experiences: Create comprehensive digital models of products and supply chains, enhancing design precision and enabling better decision-making for complex processes.
- 3DEXPERIENCE Platform: Unify all business aspects onto a single platform, fostering increased collaboration, improving execution, and significantly accelerating innovation across your entire organization.
- Data-Driven Approaches: Adopt intelligent, AI-powered solutions for sourcing and supply chain management, embedding agility and resilience to mitigate risks in uncertain environments.
Dassault Systèmes features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Dassault Systèmes provides a robust solution, making it an excellent choice for the best plastic industry software. Its 3DEXPERIENCE platform enables streamlined operations, improved production quality, and actionable analytics, which is essential for scaling plastic manufacturers seeking a sustainable competitive advantage through digital transformation.
2. Plex
Struggling with fragmented production data and siloed systems?
Plex’s Smart Manufacturing Platform connects your people, systems, machines, and supply chains, eliminating manual processes and driving efficiency. This means you can centralize your operations, making decision-making faster and more accurate.
Automate business processes to drive efficiency, ensuring a clear picture of your company by tracking data from the plant floor to the top floor.
Here’s how to streamline your operations.
Plex makes your operations smarter by connecting and automating critical processes across your manufacturing enterprise. It transforms raw data into [actionable insights](https://nerdisa.com/best-accounts-payable-software/), improving production quality and fostering compliance.
This platform helps you remove error-prone manual processes, leading to significant gains in efficiency and operational visibility. It also provides a robust Quality Management System (QMS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) to unify your data.
Additionally, Plex offers Production Monitoring and Asset Performance Management, giving you a comprehensive view of machine performance and ensuring you can make better, data-driven decisions that matter most for your business growth and competitive advantage.
Gain complete control over your production.
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Key features:
- Smart Manufacturing Platform: Connects people, systems, machines, and supply chains to automate processes and track data from the plant floor to the top floor.
- Integrated QMS and ERP: Offers comprehensive quality management and enterprise resource planning functionalities, eliminating data silos and improving overall business intelligence.
- Production Monitoring & APM: Provides real-time insights into machine performance and asset health, enabling proactive decision-making and optimizing production efficiency.
Plex features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Plex stands out as a leading contender for the best plastic industry software, offering a comprehensive platform that connects, automates, tracks, and analyzes your entire manufacturing operation. Its integrated ERP, MES, and QMS capabilities, alongside robust production monitoring, are critical for achieving the streamlined operations and measurable efficiency gains desired by growing plastic manufacturers.
3. CyFrame
Struggling with fragmented data and inefficient production?
CyFrame provides a plastics processing ERP software and MES Shop Data solution engineered to optimize your production.
This means you can streamline operations, gain real-time visibility, and reduce the cost of ownership significantly.
Here’s your path to streamlined operations.
CyFrame helps you simplify complex workflows with its integrated workflow automation, enhancing your internal productivity compared to generic ERPs. This unified system gives you a complete business and shop floor solution specifically for plastics processors.
You’ll gain access to real-time production monitoring and PLC tracking, enabling quick assessments and corrective actions while they still make a difference. Its core ERP-MES solution delivers major benefits faster, allowing small to medium processors to scale up for growth.
Additionally, features like Inventory Lot Tracking, Warehouse Management, and Quality Management ensure total integration from pellets to finished product. This comprehensive suite addresses your specialized needs across blow molding, injection molding, profile extrusion, and film & sheeting, giving you robust KPI dashboards and profitability reporting.
The result is measurable efficiency gains.
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Key features:
- Total Integration from Pellets to Product streamlines your entire manufacturing process, providing complete visibility and control over all stages.
- Real-Time Production Monitoring and PLC Tracking empowers you to assess situations quickly, identify root causes, and take corrective actions immediately.
- Drag & Drop Scheduling Dynamic MRP and Purchasing optimizes your production planning, inventory management, and procurement for improved efficiency and cost savings.
CyFrame features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: CyFrame stands out as the best plastic industry software, designed to eliminate risks, reduce costs, and increase project performance. With its specialized ERP and MES capabilities, you can achieve critical outcomes like a 50% reduction in scrap rate and a 10% increase in production capacity, as seen with King Plastics.
4. Epicor
Struggling with fragmented production data and outdated systems?
Epicor offers comprehensive ERP platforms and AI-driven applications specifically designed for manufacturing, including your plastic operations. This means you can simplify complex processes and gain valuable insights.
You can truly empower your team and build efficiency by leveraging people-centric AI and automation to elevate your business. This helps you address common frustrations like evaluating complex feature sets.
Ready to streamline your operations?
Epicor addresses pain points of inefficient manual tracking and fragmented data by offering solutions for manufacturing. You’ll find future-focused ERP and smart factory technology to optimize efficiency.
This includes sophisticated MES (Manufacturing Execution Systems) like Epicor Advanced MES and Connected Process Control, which provide the actionable analytics needed for improved production quality and seamless integration. Your team can leverage cloud capabilities for unprecedented scale, resilience, and security, storing critical data securely and optimizing resources.
Additionally, with their robust data management and integration capabilities, you can build a strong data supply chain across your entire enterprise, ensuring data accuracy and secure collaboration.
Connect your entire business ecosystem.
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Key features:
- Epicor Industry ERP Cloud: Offers unprecedented scalability, resilience, and security for your critical data, optimizing resources and time.
- AI-Powered Applications (Epicor Prism, Epicor Grow): Deliver predictive insights and streamlined operations, transforming AI into a tangible ERP tool for productivity.
- Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES): Provides comprehensive tools like Epicor Advanced MES for optimizing efficiency and gaining valuable production insights.
Epicor features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Epicor stands out as a best plastic industry software solution, specifically designed to address the challenges of mid-sized and scaling plastic manufacturers. Its blend of ERP, MES, AI, and robust data management ensures streamlined operations and improved production quality, giving your business a sustainable competitive advantage.
5. Infor
Struggling with fragmented data and inefficient production?
Infor provides cloud-based enterprise software, including ERP, SCM, and MES, specifically designed for manufacturing industries. This means you can streamline your operations.
Their solutions integrate deep industry expertise with advanced technology to help your company innovate and lead, addressing pain points like disjointed systems and manual tracking. Here’s how to overcome your operational hurdles.
Infor offers robust Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solutions that transform your mission-critical processes, providing industry-specific functionality and built-in analytics. This allows you to gain real-time visibility into your production, inventory, and financials. Additionally, their Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions, including Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) and Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), enable you to run a more resilient supply chain. Plus, you can optimize yields and improve traceability with manufacturing execution systems (MES). The result is improved production quality and seamless integration.
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Key features:
- ERP and SCM Integration: Transform mission-critical processes with cloud ERP, combining industry-specific functionality with robust supply chain planning, warehousing, and PLM capabilities.
- Manufacturing Execution System (MES): Gain precise control over your production floor, optimizing yields, improving safety, and ensuring traceability across your plastic manufacturing operations.
- Advanced Analytics & AI: Leverage built-in analytics, machine learning, and generative AI to predict demand, gain actionable insights, and drive continuous improvement in your processes.
Infor features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: Infor stands out as a leading contender for the best plastic industry software, offering comprehensive cloud-based solutions like ERP, SCM, and MES. Their focus on industry-specific functionality, combined with advanced AI and analytics, directly addresses the need for streamlined operations, improved production quality, and actionable insights for mid-sized and scaling plastic manufacturers.
6. MIE Solutions
Struggling with fragmented production data and inefficient tracking?
MIE Trak Pro offers an all-in-one ERP solution that integrates critical functions like quoting, purchasing, and scheduling. This means you can centralize your operations and gain real-time visibility.
Its design directly addresses your pain points by enhancing productivity and minimizing errors. The result is a seamless integration of core business functions.
Here’s how MIE Trak Pro helps you.
This software anticipates and solves common problems, allowing you to run your business at optimal performance. It maximizes employee productivity and material yield while minimizing the time between order and shipment. You can reduce inefficiencies and boost your profitability. For example, its real-time work order insights show production status, and the scheduling module eliminates guesswork for employees and machines. Additionally, MIE Trak Pro provides robust quality management for easy QC audits, and powerful reporting tools for data-driven decisions, saving thousands annually by quoting with accurate job costing.
This helps you achieve sustainable competitive advantage.
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Key features:
- Comprehensive ERP Integration: MIE Trak Pro unifies quoting, purchasing, inventory, work orders, and shipping into a single, cohesive system for full operational oversight.
- Real-time Production Control: Gain immediate insights into your shop floor with modules for work orders, scheduling, and Kiosk functionality to track job progress without paper.
- Enhanced Financial and Quality Management: Integrate accounting practices, manage cash flow, and leverage a built-in QMS for CPAR tracking, non-conformance, and easy audit compliance.
MIE Solutions features, pricing, & alternatives →
Verdict: MIE Trak Pro stands out as an excellent choice for best plastic industry software because it streamlines operations by integrating all core business functions. This ERP solution helps manufacturers maximize productivity, reduce human error, and achieve significant efficiency gains, making it ideal for scaling companies.
Conclusion
Still battling production inefficiencies?
Relying on outdated systems and manual tracking makes it impossible to see the full picture. This leaves you vulnerable to costly errors and missed targets.
According to Plastics Business Magazine, nearly 44% of plastics industry executives plan to boost spending on automation. Investing in the right technology is no longer optional for staying competitive and profitable.
Here’s my top recommendation.
From my comprehensive review, Dassault Systèmes stands out. Its 3DEXPERIENCE platform unifies your fragmented data and modernizes production workflows with impressive efficiency.
I was especially impressed by its virtual twin experiences, letting you model and perfect processes before implementation. Choosing the best plastic industry software like this one drives real innovation and ROI.
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I suggest you visit the Dassault Systèmes website to explore how its powerful platform can transform your factory floor.
You’ll gain a lasting competitive advantage.
