You Outgrew QuickBooks. The ERP Options All Look Like a Gamble.
Next Industrial moves Midwest manufacturers off QuickBooks-plus-spreadsheets, or an aging JobBoss or E2 install, onto an ERP that fits how a job shop actually runs. Based in Cincinnati, on-site across Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, and priced a flat monthly fee instead of per seat.
Start Without Betting the Shop
You do not have to commit to a full migration to work with us. Each of these is fixed in scope and price, defined before we start, and ends in a written recommendation you keep. It is the low-risk way to find out what is worth doing before you spend serious money.
Automation & AI Discovery
A structured review of your systems and workflows to find where automation and AI can actually save you time, and where they can't. You get a written findings doc: the places worth pursuing, the ones that aren't, and what each would take. No commitment to build anything.
AI & Data Readiness Assessment
Before you fund an AI build, find out if your data can support one. We inventory your data sources, assess quality and structure, and tell you straight whether you're ready or what has to happen first. We recently ran this for a $750M manufacturer and saved them from a multi-million-dollar build their data couldn't have supported.
Systems Integration
When your ERP, accounting, scheduling tool, and that one critical spreadsheet don't talk to each other, we connect them. Fixed scope, fixed price, defined before we start. We map what you've got, build the connections that are missing, and don't force a full rebuild you didn't ask for.
For an auto-dealer software company, we reshaped a hosting setup nobody internally could explain and cut $80,000 a year in cost while improving reliability. Same pattern applies to a shop floor: figure out what's actually there, then fix it.
Powered by Seven Hills Technology
You get proof most new brands can't offer on day one: a decade of delivery, a Midwest team you can meet, and clients who've stayed with us for years.
The technical depth that the team was able to comprehend and the consultative nature of the interaction was impressive. They were able to provide a feasible roadmap and an "MVP" approach to move us forward without spending millions of dollars... 7 Hills stood out as the one company that was interested in understanding the problem.
Proof, Not Promises
Two examples of the kind of work we do. Most of our clients are under NDA, so these lead with what they do and how big they are, not their name.
Custom software for a $750M electronics manufacturer
A large manufacturer needed software built around how it actually operates, not around what an off-the-shelf product assumed.
Cutting $80k a year from an auto dealer group's infrastructure bill
The group was paying for cloud and licensing it had quietly outgrown the reasons for. We found the waste and removed it without taking a single system offline.
Three Things We Do. One System Underneath.
What We DoWhy This Isn't a Gamble
Most ERP projects that fail, fail on change management and inexperienced teams, not on the software. Our method is built around that fact: we assess fit before we recommend anything, we start small, and we tell you when a project isn't right for you yet.
Next Industrial is powered by Seven Hills Technology, a Cincinnati software consultancy that has delivered custom software since 2015. The manufacturing track record is real: we recently kept a specialty manufacturer from spending millions on an AI system their data couldn't support, and recommended they build the data foundation first.
Start With a No-Obligation Fit Assessment
We run a fit assessment before we recommend anything, at no cost and no obligation. Sometimes the answer is "not yet," and we'll tell you that too.