Small manufacturing ERP · Kitting, assembly and teardown · Updated October 2026
ERP for small manufacturers: kitting, light assembly and teardown on Dolibarr.
Most small manufacturers do not need heavy manufacturing ERP software. They need bills of materials, build orders, accurate stock and true cost per unit in the same system as purchasing, sales and the books. Dolibarr is a light manufacturing platform without customization, and Built-N-AI ran kitting and teardowns on it in a live operation.
What we ran on it
Build up and tear down, with cost on every part.
Kitting
Raw goods in, one whole unit out
Components were pulled from stock and built into a single whole unit, which then sat in inventory as one sellable product. Run on the native Dolibarr BOM with minor hook and trigger customization.
Teardown
One whole unit in, many parts out
The reverse of manufacturing. A whole laptop was torn down for its parts, the cost of the laptop was allocated to each part, and the parts were inventoried and sold.
Repair
200+ units a day, repaired and tested
A custom repair module built inside Dolibarr and used heavily: more than 200 units a day processed, repaired and tested.
All three ran in Dolibarr at TXS Corp, a computer hardware and consumer-electronics resale business, alongside more than 400,000 SKUs and up to 300 orders a day. That is the kind of work a refurbishment ERP, a repair business ERP or an electronics recycling ERP has to handle: the unit of stock changes shape, and the cost has to follow it.
Dolibarr manufacturing, plainly
What a small manufacturing ERP has to do, and where it comes from.
Dolibarr MRP is two free modules in the standard distribution: Dolibarr BOM for bills of materials and Manufacturing Orders for the build. Column 2 is that free core. Column 3 is what Built-N-AI adds or did in practice.
| Requirement | Dolibarr out of the box | Built-N-AI in practice |
|---|---|---|
| ERP bill of materials | Included: BOM module manages bills of materials for products. | Native BOM used for kitting and teardown, with minor hook and trigger customization. |
| ERP work order management | Included: Manufacturing Orders module adds MRP features on top of the BOM module. | Kitting of raw goods into a single whole unit. |
| Teardown / disassembly | Stock movements and product costing. | Whole laptops torn down to parts, cost allocated to each part, parts inventoried and sold. |
| Repair and test | Not a core module. | Custom repair module inside Dolibarr: 200+ units a day processed, repaired and tested. |
| Component and finished stock | Included: multiple warehouses, stock movements, lot and serial tracking, valuation. | Barcode cycle counts reconciled on the spot, down to the bin. |
| Purchasing components | Included: supplier price lists, purchase orders, receiving against POs. | Single-touch bulk receiving; AI intake for large volumes of unknown product. |
| Selling units and parts | Included: quotes, sales orders, shipments, invoices, margin on every line. | Amazon and eBay orders created in the ERP by API through Rithum. |
| Accounting | Included: double-entry ledger, bank reconciliation, multi-currency. | — |
| Production management ERP: scheduling and capacity | Light. Not a finite-capacity scheduler. | Scoped as a custom module only when the numbers justify it. |
Who this fits
A light manufacturing ERP, stated honestly.
Fits
Kitters and light assemblers
Products built from a short bill of materials, where inventory and cost accuracy matter more than production scheduling.
Fits
Refurbishers and repair operations
Units come in, get repaired, tested, rebuilt or kitted, and go back out as whole units. Proven at 200+ units a day.
Fits
Teardown and electronics recycling
Whole units harvested for parts, each part carrying its share of the cost into inventory.
Buyers searching for MRP ERP software, an open source ERP for manufacturing industry use, or for “ERP for manufacturing industry free” and “free ERP software for manufacturing company”, usually find two kinds of product: heavy systems with a free tier that runs out, and open source manufacturing ERP software that is free with no user limit. Dolibarr is the second kind. The license costs nothing; the implementation is the investment.
Questions small manufacturers ask
Manufacturing ERP, answered plainly.
Does Dolibarr support manufacturing?
Yes, for light manufacturing. Out of the box, Dolibarr includes a bill of materials module and a Manufacturing Orders (MRP) module. Built-N-AI describes it as a light manufacturing platform without customization: a good fit for kitting, assembly and teardown, and not a replacement for a heavy production-planning system.
Does Dolibarr handle work orders and BOMs?
Yes. The Dolibarr BOM module manages bills of materials for products, and the Manufacturing Orders module adds MRP features on top of it. At TXS Corp, Built-N-AI’s founder used the native Dolibarr BOM, with minor hook and trigger customization, for kitting, building raw goods into a single whole unit, and for teardowns, the reverse.
What is the best MRP for small business?
It depends on how complex production is. If the work is kitting, light assembly, refurbishment or teardown and the bigger need is inventory, purchasing, sales and accounting in one system, Dolibarr covers it with no per-user license fees. If you need finite-capacity scheduling or multi-level production planning, shortlist a dedicated manufacturing ERP instead.
Is there free ERP software for a manufacturing company?
Yes. Dolibarr is free, open source manufacturing software under the GPL license, with BOM and Manufacturing Orders modules included in the standard distribution. The software is free; implementation, data migration, hosting and training are the real costs.
Can an ERP handle teardown, where one unit becomes many parts?
Yes. At TXS Corp, whole laptops were torn down for their parts in Dolibarr. The cost of the laptop was allocated to each part, and the parts were then put into inventory and sold.
Is Dolibarr a good ERP for a repair or refurbishment business?
It fits refurbishers, repair operations and electronics recyclers whose work is receiving mixed product, tearing units down, kitting units back up, and selling whole units and parts. At TXS Corp, Built-N-AI’s founder built a custom repair module inside Dolibarr that processed, repaired and tested more than 200 units a day. Dolibarr carries the inventory, cost and sales side; Built-N-AI adds modules for repair, intake, receiving, warehouse execution and marketplace orders.
When is Dolibarr not the right manufacturing ERP?
When production itself is the hard part: heavy discrete or process manufacturing, finite-capacity scheduling, or regulated production records. Dolibarr is a light manufacturing platform without customization, and Built-N-AI will say so in the first conversation.
Sources: kitting and teardown practice is from Built-N-AI’s live Dolibarr implementation at TXS Corp. Dolibarr module descriptions from the Dolibarr wiki, Module BOM and Module Manufacturing Orders, checked 5 October 2026. Rithum, Amazon, eBay and SAP are trademarks of their respective owners.
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