Flexibility, Usability and Capacity Planning to Drive Future Growth

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, today announced that Dyer Engineering Ltd, a UK-based sub-contract fabrication and specialist engineering company, has selected the Epicor next-generation enterprise resourcing planning (ERP) solution, to replace its existing end-to-end ERP solution.

Dyer Engineering has always been an early adopter of advanced technology, and the company has used its existing ERP solution since 1999. While ERP is already embedded in all departments there are areas of functionality missing, or unable to perform in the way the management team requires to help reach the company’s growth target. The company currently has 95 employees and plans to employ a further 30 over the next three years. The ERP system replacement project forms part of a major investment in technology and machinery throughout the business.

“We have always had challenges with capacity planning in the existing solution,” said Jim Athey, operations systems manager at Dyer Engineering. “We have developed in-house reports, but we want capacity planning to be at the heart of our manufacturing business as we grow. We want our production planning to recalculate resourcing and material needs as new orders are created, or supply chain delays encountered.”

Additionally, Dyer Engineering plans to use dashboard features within Epicor to give much more control and information to the engineers on the shop floor, allowing them to use touch screens to interact with the information they need for their role, such as job cards, or outstanding orders, as well as update the status of items as they are processed. All Dyer Engineering employees interact with the ERP system every day whether it be purchasing raw materials or providing traceability of the manufacturing process.

“It was essential to us that we selected an ERP solution with a heritage in manufacturing that could support our business processes,” added Athey. “Many of the solutions we looked at had started as finance systems, then added some stock control, then tried to add some MRP features. With Epicor, it was clearly a complete manufacturing system first and foremost, with excellent support for other business areas woven into that core.”

Dyer Engineering’s project team was particularly impressed by the flexibility offered by Epicor through features such as user-customizable application screens, its ability to interface with and connect the shop floor to the ERP system, as well as process flexibility through business process management (BPM) logic. BPM allows a customer to modify or develop new business logic rules that can be triggered by or trigger other events based on specified criteria. For example, a BPM could be used to trigger a supervisor to be e-mailed when a manufacturing job overruns its scheduled time by a specified percentage, so that remedial action can be taken.

“Business expectations of ERP have changed dramatically over the past decade,” said Malcolm Fox, vice president, product marketing at Epicor. “In today’s world all employees can be consumers or users of ERP and may each have differing requirements. The core functionality to drive efficiencies within the business needs to be there, but equally important is the ability to provide the insight and flexibility demanded across the organization. Epicor ERP was designed from the ground up to give todays users the best of both worlds – mature embedded functionality across the business aligned with the tools for today’s mobile and information-hungry user.”

For more information contact Duncan Gurney, The PR Network (on behalf of Epicor UK)
Email [email protected], Tel  +44 (0)7912 495630