In Part 7 of our series, ETO, Why Now, we’ll review a key concept we stressed in our recent White Paper on the topic.   In January, in Part 6, we looked at whether your ERP still fits.   Outdated technology or missing features can limit your ability to grow your business or even damage your existing competitiveness.  Trends in early 2012 still provide a compelling argument that Engineer to Order (ETO) or custom manufacturing is THE MOST EFFECTIVE BUSINESS STRATEGY in the current (and foreseeable) economic climate because:

• ETO Manufacturing keeps manufacturing in America. Custom manufacturing is not cost-effective when out-sourced; foreign manufacturers cannot handle variability and change while maintaining low costs.
• Unique, one-of-a-kind solutions have a higher perceived value to customers resulting in better profit margins for manufacturers when accurately bid and properly executed.

ETO – Made in America. One of the headlines from an early February USA Today article reads “Manufacturing a star of an upbeat jobs report”. According to the article factories added 49,000 jobs in January.  “Higher demand is finally kicking in, particularly in emerging markets”, says economist Cliff Waldman of research group Manufacturers Alliance/MAPI. And productivity gains that let makers put off hiring last year amid economic uncertainty are wearing thin.

When we look in the mirror after the holidays we often find things don’t fit like they used to.  In Part 6 of our series, we’re asking this timely question, does your ERP system still fit?

• -Is it time for a change because your system is outdated or outmoded?
• -How has your company changed this year?
• -Do you need mobility, scalability and deployment flexibility  to extend your reach?

Time to make a change

You may have outgrown your ERP system or it no longer keeps pace with the changes of your business.  Older ERP systems are not designed to stretch and fit forever.  ERP systems built on older or proprietary databases make it difficult to adapt to change or get good information out on a timely basis.   ERP systems designed for a unique niche industry, like ETO, can limit your ability to adapt to changes in your market or business.  It is possible that one-size-fits-all no longer fits your company.

New technologies provide more options for the ETO organization.  The ability to tailor or mold the system to your business can provide significant value.  Streamlining your business processes or implementing a unique process that better serves your market can mean lower operating costs or increased customer service.  Older systems may not allow you the flexibility you need.

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 is built on the solid foundation of Microsoft business systems.  The same people who deliver exceptional office applications like MS Excel and Word, design the role-tailored user experience of AX 2012.  AX 2012 enables your IT team to leverage existing investments in Microsoft infrastructure, database and application technologies.  AX 2012 is the most agile and flexible ERP system on the market today.  You can mold and shape AX 2012 to fit your business.

The only constant is change

Whether it is globalization, the economy, competition or new opportunities, change is the new normal.  When your company shrinks or expands, can your ERP system adapt and help you grow quickly and easily?  Many companies are growing through mergers and acquisitions.  Older ERP systems can make it hard  to absorb the new workloads without harming existing business.  It can be difficult to transition a new company into your existing system.  Does your current ERP system support multiple countries, multiple companies or complex supply chain or distribution warehousing scenarios?

Many companies have been forced to work with fewer resources.  Personnel are required to wear multiple hats and cross-train on many functions.  An ERP system that is cumbersome, difficult to use, or doesn’t deliver key decision making information can stretch your employees to the breaking point.   Using your ERP system should be easy and intuitive so training costs are minimized and users can readily adopt new practices or procedures.  Instead of constraining your team, you need an ERP system that can empower your people to enhance productivity.

Users gain exceptional productivity tools using AX 2012 from Microsoft.   Its familiarity and ease of use increases utilization and adoption, for daily tasks or cross-functional processes.  The built-in business intelligence provides meaningful, timely information without straining your IT resources.

AX 2012 provides 38 country languages and localizations.  The core product is multi-company/site and warehouse ready out of the box.   As your company grows or expands you can easily implement new companies or countries.

Extending the reach of your ERP system

Today’s workforce is more mobile and adaptable than ever.   Many companies struggle to keep a diverse and mobile workforce unified and informed from a single source of the truth.  Does your current ERP solution constrain your organization or deliver what they need, where they are, when they need it?  Maybe you are considering hosted or cloud ERP solutions.  Can you easily upgrade your current ERP system to a web-enabled deployment?

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides all the tools your organization needs for today’s workforce.  AX 2012 can deliver timely information through your email system to smart phones, provide web access for employee self-service access to purchase requisitioning or expense management, or deploy your entire enterprise through the web.  Microsoft has always been in the forefront of technology that support the business enterprise and AX 2012 is built on that foundation.  AX 2012 can be deployed onsite or hosted allowing you to make the right choice for your organization.

AX 2012 is the right fit for ETO companies

You won’t need to worry about whether your ERP solution fits anymore.  It fits your people and it fits your business now and into the future.   In much the same way you make your products fit your customer’s needs, AX 2012 fits you as the most powerful, agile and simple ERP system available.   And nobody helps manufacturers get the best fit possible better than Streamline Systems.

Today we’ll deal with two important questions to ask your ERP Vendor to help validate their short and long term viability.  Don’t forget to join the ongoing discussion at #ERPONYOURTERMS

• · How many customers do you serve and how stable is your business?
• · What’s your roadmap and investment in R&D?

Customer Service and Stability

It’s important to know how deep your vendor’s install base is and how much it is growing on an annualized basis.  The install base is a good indicator of viability in terms of sheer numbers but probably more importantly in terms of industry coverage.  It is one thing for the ERP vendor to demo the product but how many customers similar to yours actually use the system?   This applies as well to the implementation partners who support the ERP vendor in your industry.  Vertical industry expertise provides significant value during your implementation and ensures you will get the best overall fit for your company.  The partner who knows your business usually can help you avoid common pitfalls and ultimately save implementation dollars.

So be careful to research the stability of the providers you are evaluating. If your software publisher goes out of business or gets acquired by another company a lot can change with your service levels, product support, future upgrades, etc.   It’s not as uncommon as you might think.  Software consolidations and buyouts are also more prevalent than ever, so consider the software publisher’s expertise, staying power and ability to deliver ongoing innovation and value for your investment before signing on the dotted line.

We missed postings for ERP on your Terms, for week 5 and 6.  Here’s a brief recap, and you can also catch up on the discussion at #ERPONYOURTERMS

Week 5 posed the question: Does our ERP solution help us maximize our investments in the Microsoft technology platform and Microsoft Office productivity tools?

When you are looking at real ROI for your ERP project you can look no further than the technology platform and “stack” you may already have in place through your investment in Microsoft business applications.  No doubt you’re already using Windows servers and desktops and most likely have deployed MS Office and other complimentary Microsoft offerings.

Microsoft knows business. Microsoft Office productivity tools are widely used by millions of businesses and because Microsoft Dynamics ERP works like and with your current Microsoft technology you receive additional business benefits including a higher user adoption rate and lower training costs.

So leverage your existing investments and come out ahead of the ROI curve by fully utilizing the technology you already have and your users are comfortable with.

In part 5 of 10 in our series on Dynamics AX 2012 for ETO organizations we’ll explore the Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 promise to make ERP simple and easy to use:

• · Role-tailored user experience
• · Familiar MS Office workspace

Simple is Better

The ETO organization must be nimble and agile to stay in business.  Users wear many hats and often need to cross roles to keep work moving.  If users don’t have the tools to adapt to change they have to struggle through their day using workarounds, spreadsheets and extra effort.

Information delivery needs to be timely and meaningful.  There’s no reason why you can’t find out immediately about a shortage, an engineering change that affects production, or even updates to company policy or news.  The information should lead you directly to the place where follow-up processing can happen.  There’s limited benefit in receiving a shortage notification in your email, if you have to login to another system to resolve it.

Dynamics AX 2012 provides a single point of access, called the Role Center, to keep you informed and help you take care of the important activities to keep your business running.  In the Role Center daily tasks, routines and information are organized the way you work.  You receive critical insight into upcoming trends or events, usually before a problem occurs.  Alerts link directly to the affected task or process and workflow reminders eliminate wasted time and energy.  Managers can keep track of tasks assigned to subordinates and you can collaborate on shared tasks with other departments.

The idea of an information dashboard isn’t new, but Microsoft extends the concept further by providing a personalized workspace where information meets action out of the box, based on your role in the company.

Part 4 of 10 in our series on benefits of AX 2012 for ETO organizations. Last week explored supply chain enhancements.  This week the focus is on powerful new production capabilities like:

• > Operations resource model
• > Touch-enabled job registration screens
• > Hybrid manufacturing mode

Operations Resource Model

ETO organizations today are under pressure to cut costs and produce more with less.  This usually means fewer available resources for the tasks required for engineering, design and production.  Many resources are now cross-trained on multiple disciplines or work tasks.   Certain tasks require specialized skills and applying the wrong resource to a critical task can end up costing big time if the product is wrong or needs to be reworked.

The operation resource model  in AX 2012 provides significant flexibility to production managers and their shop supervisors.  The easy to use modeling tool enables rapid deployment of resources or more efficient assignment of resources across multiple site, locations or departments.  The ability to filter who can work on what machine or product based on work capabilities or certifications ensures that you have the right resource applied to the right task.

ERP on your terms might require exceptional agility in your overall solution.  The question for this week is “How does your solution support integration with other business applications?” You can also follow this discussion via Twitter at #ERPONYOURTERMS

The business environment today is not one-size-fits-all.   New technologies provide more options.  You may need a solution that is flexible and easy to integrate across the enterprise.  Some ERP vendors focus on a worthy goal of process standardization and promise to simplify deployment and reduce IT expenditures.  A sole focus on this objective may cause you to lose flexibility or limit integration capabilities you need.   Costs quickly add up if you have to make adjustments later in your ERP project to connect your data to other applications or legacy systems.

Don’t limit your options

ERP on your terms would enable you to leverage your existing investments in technology or extend capabilities through complimentary technologies, or best-of-breed applications that provide unique value to your organization.  Instead of limiting your choices, Microsoft Dynamics AX can easily connect and integrate with external data sources and applications, even if they’re built on non-Microsoft platforms.

In addition, all Microsoft hosted ERP applications in the US are currently offered in a “managed service” environment, rather than sharing the same application across multiple companies. With this approach partners and customers are able to integrate their hosted Microsoft Dynamics ERP solution with 3rd party applications. While Microsoft Dynamics ERP is flexible and easy to integrate you don’t have to give up reduced IT costs or simplified deployments. Don’t settle for one over the other when you can have both.

Integration flexibility will be even more important in the future.  ERP on your terms enables you to respond to technology enhancements, extend system capabilities or address functional requirements to empower your organization to gain competitive advantage or respond to customer demands.

ERP on Your Terms!

We continue from last week’s discussion with this important question, “What deployment model is best for my business?” You can also follow this discussion via Twitter at  #ERPONYOURTERMS

Until recently this question wasn’t even on the agenda for most businesses.  The thought of deploying an ERP system outside of an internally secured environment rarely crossed the minds of C-level executives, much less the Information Technology department.   Today there are two primary factors driving new interest in alternative deployment models:

1. > Proven viability of hosted and online applications
2. > Growing cost pressures

To gain the best advantage for your company, you should make sure your ERP vendor is delivering solutions that work for you, that provide the best value for your company.  Over the next 10-12 weeks we will be featuring  a series of questions you should ask your ERP vendors.   For example, one of the first questions you might ask is:

“Will the ERP solution fit the way we work, or will we need to change our processes to run it?”

You can explore this question further and catch up on more discussions via Twitter at #ERPONYOURTERMS

One of the questions we’re hearing from a lot of customers today is:

“Does the solution offer the flexibility to deploy both on-premises and in the cloud, or in some combination of each?”

That’s more relevant today than ever before.  We’re excited about the flexibility available to our customers with Microsoft Dynamics AX, on-premise and hosted deployment.   Before you decide on which way to go it’s helpful to weigh the benefits and pitfalls of all the available options: