I recently had the opportunity, during Epicor’s global customer conference, to talk with Chad Meyer, director of product marketing, and he shared with me some of the highlights of Epicor’s vision and strategy for cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP). Read the rest of this entry »

There are five stages that usually make up the lifecycle of a product: introduction, growth, maturity, decline, and termination.

During introduction, companies typically focus on the success of the product. Maturity is the stage when their focus is to take advantage of momentum and sell as much as possible. Only during maturity or decline do they start worrying about product end-of-life—which may be too late, as the transition from maturity to decline can happen very quickly (not to mention that there is no clear delimitation between stages, which means that a product can move from maturity to decline in its lifecycle without the manufacturer even noticing). Preparing for a product’s end of life should definitely start earlier, but the question is when and how they should approach it.

In order to understand that, let’s take a look at some basic concepts of product end-of-life, as well as the most important challenges that companies face when managing it. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series introduced the concept of (Rapid) Response Management in the realm of supply chain management (SCM) via a software category pioneer, Kinaxis. The currently bullish Kinaxis has a number of customers that are SAP ERP customers too, and for a long time SAP was at first dismissive (or at least ambivalent) regarding the need for Response Management, as the company had its own well-known SAP Advanced Planner and Optimizer (SAP APO) product. In addition, Kinaxis has had to compete with other advanced planning and scheduling (APS) providers such as JDA Software (former i2 and Manugistics), Logility, and Oracle.

Since November 2010, SAP has been distributing a supply chain solution by a lesser-known German software company ICON-SCM as SAP Supply Chain Response Management (SAP SCRM) by ICON-SCM, a solution extension to its own SCM suite, SAP SCM (see TEC’s article entitled SAP SCM – Stepping out of Obscurity). SAP had investigated several options to satisfy this role, and presumably one of those options might have been Kinaxis. For its part, Oracle released its internally designed standalone product in 2009 called Oracle Rapid Planner, which can be layered on top of Oracle’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) products and other ERP products.

Now, Kinaxis feels vindicated by Oracle and SAP’s endorsement of the market at long last, but is slighted by the IKON-SCM partnership, plus, it is a fierce competition now. In addition, isn’t “optimization” part of the SAP APO name, and why then did SAP introduce a separate SCRM solution? It seems we may be talking about different kinds of optimization. Maybe in certain situations it’s more appropriate to use one kind of optimization versus the other.

Read the rest of this entry »

My recent series on how to plan and manage in uncertainty and volatility (which conditions have become the “new normal” in many sectors and industries) has generated much interest and many comments. As mentioned in the series, the inspiration came from Kinaxis customers’ case studies presented during the Kinexions 2011 user conference.

Ottawa (Canada)-based Kinaxis has been experiencing a renaissance of sorts lately in these days of dispersed complex supply networks and outsourced and offshore manufacturing (with so-called brand owners and their vast network of suppliers). After over 25 years in existence, and some name changes for both the company and its products since the inception, it is not exactly easy to explain what Kinaxis offers (or even better, where its capabilities start and end in the realm of supply chain management [SCM]).

Read the rest of this entry »

Take the survey now! Or read on to find out why we’re talking about this. Read the rest of this entry »

Exact Software has recently released a new enterprise resource planning (ERP) offering in the cloud. Headquartered in the Netherlands and with offices in North America serving 100,000 customers worldwide, Exact offers two global ERP products (Globe and Synergy), as well as other local products (Macola, MAX and JobBOSS for the Americas, Exact Financials for the Netherlands, etc.). The company exclusively markets its products for small to medium businesses (SMBs) spanning many industry segments, with a focus on manufacturing, wholesale and distribution, and professional services.

Having just had the opportunity to discuss the new offering with the product manager for the Macola line, Michael McPherson, I recap that conversation below. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series discussed the genesis of ProfitKey International, one of the longest-standing enterprise resource planning (ERP) providers for small to midsize discrete manufacturers that has never been merged with another peer product. After the protracted bankruptcy saga of its former parent company, HALO Technology Holdings, ProfitKey was recently bought out by Phoenix Asset Management, and is now keen on starting a new chapter.

Read the rest of this entry »

This post starts with a trivia question: Please name the mid-market enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendor that has existed the longest in the market with an ERP product that has never been merged with another product? In addition, the vendor and its product offerings have never been covered by TEC and myself. As a hint, the company was founded in 1979 and has always focused on discrete make-to-order (MTO) and engineer-to-order (ETO) manufacturing.

Is there anyone out there wanting to venture a guess? If more hints are needed, it is not MAPICS XA, which was founded in 1977 by IBM, but now belongs to Infor and is currently called Infor ERP Discrete iEnterprise (and before that had changed many ownerships and shared a roof with other ERP products). SYSPRO has been independent since 1978, but has been a frequent topic on this site. It is not QAD either, which has been independent since 1979, but TEC has repeatedly reported about this vendor (see the most recent article on the company). It is not ABAS Software AG either, which has also been independent since its founding in 1980 (TEC just published an article on the company).

Read the rest of this entry »

During briefings with small ERP vendors, I often hear the argument that they are more flexible and can better respond to their customers’ needs than larger vendors. The ultimate example: “You can even talk to the CEO if you need to.”

But would you want to? Bypassing the usual workflows and calling the CEO (this actually really happens) may not be a recipe for the best technical support ever.

Besides, from my experience working with and for small ERP vendors, I know that if you want to talk with the CEO, it’s likely that you’re unhappy about something (customers rarely call to congratulate the CEO for the team’s great work). Or, you’re trying to get something from the vendor without going through the formal process of, say, submitting a developmental request for new features.

I know that small ERP vendors are more willing to make compromises and create special relationships with their customers, but there are also disadvantages that you need to consider. Let’s take a look at the challenges you might encounter during the selection and implementation process, and some of the things that you can do to avoid them. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about the major (blockbuster of a sort) announcements at PTC’s PlanetPTC Live 2011 annual user conference, which was held in mid-June 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada, US. These announcements were as follows:

1. General availability (GA) of nine PTC Creo 1.0 design applications.
2. Showcasing the Windchill 10.0 product lifecycle management (PLM) suite.
3. The acquisition of MKS Inc. and its flagship Integrity platform for embedded software lifecycle management.

But there were a number of other announcements that were seemingly not that earth-shattering. Still, these announcements indicate the ongoing PLM/computer-aided design (CAD) market trends and will likely have significant implications on other product development software market players’ moves.

Read the rest of this entry »

Many people consider social media as a set of tools for communicating with others and/or entertaining themselves and collaboration as a characteristic of business processes and workflows that allows employees to work together to be more efficient.

In reality though, both social media and collaboration can help employees communicate and share information, and thus work more efficiently. In addition, the success of any social media and collaboration initiative heavily depends on the tools used and the way they are integrated with the activities of the company. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent article entitled “Workforce Scheduling & Optimization: The Missing Link on the Shop Floor?” analyzed the importance of manufacturing workforce scheduling & optimization solutions and stated that many manufacturing enterprises still use rudimentary tools and practices (if that) to manage their labor. The article stated that most manufacturing organizations do not yet understand the strategic value that workforce scheduling could provide to them.

Often, manufacturing companies (complacently or ignorantly) think that the existing practices and tools that they have in place for labor scheduling are “good enough” or that workforce scheduling for their environment is so unique and complex that it cannot be properly automated. Until recently, a few percentiles of improvement in labor utilization or productivity hasn’t been much of an incentive for manufacturing executives to invest in sophisticated workforce management (WFM) systems. Labor has been customarily viewed as a constraint (or even a necessary evil) to the successful movement of goods through the supply chain.

What a difference in attitude a protracted economic downturn can make. Because labor represents a large percentage of any organization’s controllable costs, many manufacturing companies have lately realized that the benefits of implementing automated workforce scheduling can be significant.

Read the rest of this entry »

These days when all the excitement seems to be coming from “social anything” and “cloud anything” gadgets, it is refreshing to see some tried-and-true enterprise resource planning (ERP) vendors doing very well in their much less exciting manufacturing realms. The two vendors in this instance are IQMS and IFS, and there are many similarities between them (other than the superficial one that their names start with “I” and end with “S”).

Namely, both vendors are focused solely on manufacturing (mostly in discrete manufacturing, but also in mixed-mode discrete and process manufacturing environments), they both leverage Oracle’s database and Microsoft’s client-side technologies, and are currently happy to remain deployed on-premises (perhaps with some managed hosting options). In addition, both vendors tend to offer complete functionality natively and scalable solutions without requiring costly third-party interfaces. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Enterprise resource planning (ERP) was born of the need of large companies to manage their resources and operations. In the early stages of ERP almost half a century ago, only multinational corporations could afford the investment in the software and the infrastructure needed to support it. Material requirements planning (MRP), the predecessor of ERP, was used by only a couple hundred companies in 1975, and the number grew to 8,000 in 1981.

Over time, the programming tools evolved, and the commoditization of hardware and the use of the Internet to store data and facilitate remote connections made ERP more accessible. Nowadays even very small companies can acquire an ERP solution for a reasonable price. But ERP is not the same for companies of all sizes. This fact reflects an important reality of the manufacturing sector: medium and large companies face challenges that are very different from those of small enterprises. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series started with a discussion of the fact that the ability to sense demand and become a demand-driven (responsive) business is more than just the catch phrase du jour: it has become a recipe for survival. For the past few decades, the providers of a multiplicity of by-and-large integrated manufacturing software solutions have been offering help for embattled manufacturers. From fully integrated business management systems such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) down to more focused modular plant-level solutions, including Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES), and Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) systems, manufacturers have been perplexed by how to best combine and deploy these options and islands of information.

My posting concluded that ERP systems are good for long-term planning and transactional accounting, but not necessarily appropriate for scheduling and execution on the shop floor. Only those companies that have infinite (or lots to spare) capacity, low product mix, high customer tolerance for long order lead times, and low inventory holding costs could get by using ERP for scheduling.

In other words, not many manufacturers can be fully satisfied by ERP. The next logical question was whether Lean Manufacturing practices could alleviate the abovementioned ERP shortfalls. Part 2 then acknowledged that lean ERP capabilities are well suited for producing parts with level demand (so-called “runners” in Preactor’s apt lingo) but not necessarily for parts with variable demands and make-to-order (MTO) traits (so-called “repeaters” and “strangers”).

This realization has created a coming-of-age environment for APS systems, whose first generation of products a decade ago has had their share of mixed results. The final part of this series will analyze how APS, as a manufacturing glue of sorts, relates to ERP, lean manufacturing, and MES. Is there a value proposition for integrating all these disparate systems? 

Read the rest of this entry »