10 October 2026 · 8 min · FactoraERP IoT
Questions to ask before you buy factory IoT in Kenya
The proposals look alike: a gateway, a dashboard, a promise about your PLC, and a price that arrives after the third meeting. The differences show up on a bad night. Ask these before you sign. We sell this category, and we would rather you ask us too.
What happens when the feeder trips?
Separate it from “what happens when the SIM dies”. One is a power cut. The other is a network cut. A battery that keeps the radio up does not help if the gateway itself rebooted and lost the hour. Ask where the samples sit during the gap, how you can see a hole after the sync, and who replaces the battery. If the answer is a slide from a city with steadier power, ask for a test on your site.
Our own offline page separates a dropped link, which the gateway buffers, from a power cut, which we do not claim a battery for. Hold every vendor to that split, including this one. Read it at /offline.
Who acknowledges, by name?
A threshold that messages a group is a notification. A list that stores the person who took the alert is a record. Ask whether the name is a login, whether a shared password would erase it, and whether the morning shift can see it without calling the night shift. This is the part of FactoraERP IoT we will demonstrate, because it is what the product describes.
Does the reading meet the batch, the job, and the cost?
If the answer is “we can integrate with your ERP”, ask who pays for that project and what “done” means. A CSV on Fridays is not a batch record. FactoraERP IoT can run with FactoraERP, with another ERP through an integration pack, or with none. An alarm opens a work order, temperature stays on the batch, and cost stays on the lot. Ask to see those screens. Do not pay a higher example fee for a column that only exists on a pricing sketch.
What is the fee, in shillings, and what is a device?
Per site, per gateway, per tag and per probe are different purchases. Ask the billing term and the currency of the invoice. A range of about USD 30–250 per device per month is what this category usually occupies. Our pricing page puts example fees inside that range, in shillings and dollars, and labels them drafts. Hardware is separate until a SKU exists. A vendor who will not show a shape of price before the pilot is telling you the commercial conversation will be worse than the technical one.
Who owns the hardware, and who answers in East Africa Time?
Sold, rented, or yours already. Who installs, in which counties, and what you must have ready: power, conduit, a SIM, a person with a key. Then the support question: a 2am cold-room alert is not a billing ticket. Ask the channel and the hours. “Our engineers are elsewhere, partners are local” can be honest. It can also mean nobody owns the night. Our company is in Kenya. The hours for this product are not published yet, and the contact number on the site is a placeholder until it is a real line. Check the badge before you dial.
What will they refuse to invent?
A useful test of a vendor is the sentence they will not say. No customer you can call. No certificate number. No protocol they have not read on your PLC. No uptime figure without a window. If a proposal has all of those and a thin product tour, believe the tour.
The payback calculator is a way to take your own shilling figure into that meeting. It will not flatter you unless your inputs do.