While most companies advertise a configurable architecture many of them do not offer the measure of flexability needed to please a team that wants to innovate. Many companies offer user defined fields as part of their structure so that you can add data to entry screens that is important in your organization and they might also allow your team to run custom procedures as data is entered into their system but they do not allow you to really change the structure of the system. Making changes to the structure of the data or any serious changes to the way the screens work or process data become impossible. The customer is generally told at this point that if they were to change the system in that manner it would be unsupportable or not upgradable.

MDA is a technology offered by companies like Tuppas software and ShopFloorReporting.com. In a system that employs MDA the ERP software is setup with a layer of functionality that is kept seperate from the user interface code. The company business logic is created in this seperate area and the interface accesses it when deciding how to display screens and reports. As technology changes the user interface can be removed and replaced but the custom business logic remains allowing you to grow and change your company without needing to rebuild your systems from scratch every seven to ten years. MDA is a technology that is definitely worth checking out if you're considering a custom ERP system.