Epicor recently sat down with the Operations Manager at Chirch Global Manufacturing and the Senior Systems Analyst at Mayekawa USA, two of the manufacturing companies who utilize the cloud capabilities of Epicor ERP. The article below summarizes this conversation around why these companies chose to make the move, the experiences they had, and why they think manufacturing and cloud ERP are a great fit for each other.

Epicor Customers Open Up About Manufacturing and Cloud ERP

A part of the conversation touched on the idea that many manufacturers think that their business and its processes are too complex for the cloud; that this mindset is why manufacturing has been slow to adopt cloud computing. An interesting point was brought up by one of the guest panelist that, while that may seem like a reason to stay away from the cloud, it is in fact the best reason to use cloud ERP. He went on to explain that when a business is that complex, it becomes even more important to have access the system and your data at any given moment because the more complex you become, the more control you need.

Flexibility and easy expansion of the system was another topic of conversation, with panelist agreeing that they find their ability to quickly plug into missing technology due to the modular nature of Epicor ERP. With traditional ERP systems, adding a missing aspect to the software took far longer and was much more expensive to get the same exact result.

Cloud ERP is always talking about collaboration, but what about creativity? When asked what one of the more surprising side-effects/ benefits of manufacturing and cloud ERP, one of the panelists began explaining that now the company is no longer constrained by their software, so they are challenged to use the new system to its fullest which has led to some creative and innovative think tanks and exciting ideas to strengthen their business.

You’ve surely heard it many times- not every ERP system is right for every company or industry. As the ERP market has grown, some publishers have tried to serve a variety of industries with one solution; others, like Epicor, has chosen some to master. Epicor ERP has a focus on serving manufacturing with a vertical solution designed with their needs in mind and these customers backed them up; explaining how it had the right infrastructure to make getting everything running the way they wanted it much easier. Traditionally company’s would have to completely reinvent the wheel and completely change processes within the system or their business to make it all “work,” these panlesists explained that with Epicor, the infrastructure was already so close to what they needed, they just need to make small tweaks to get it just how they wanted it.

To wrap up the conversation, the panelist were asked about their person future with manufacturing and cloud ERP; and it’s a bright one. Chirch Global is looking forward to the ability to view their information in one place and quickly share it across the organization and with suppliers so that they can react faster to customer problems. By reacting quickly, the problem does not have time to grow into something larger than what it is. Now that Mayekawa USA has had such a great success in implementing the USA division, they look forward to accelerating the adoption of cloud ERP in other locations.

All in all, the conversation backs up what more and more manufacturers are starting to realize; manufacturing and cloud ERP are fit for each other despite popular belief to the contrary.

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