Flexible Reporting and Intuitive User Interface Key to Selection of Epicor

Epicor Software Corporation, a global leader in business software solutions for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, today announced that MESL Microwave Ltd, a UK designer and manufacturer of microwave components and sub-systems for the Aerospace, Space and Telecommunications industries, has selected the Epicor next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution.  The new deployment will replace all existing systems to give a fully integrated quote-to-cash ERP solution, including advanced planning and scheduling, sales and reporting.

Formed in the 1960’s MESL Microwave Ltd went through various stages of ownership before becoming a privately owned company in 2007.  Since then the company has gone from strength to strength, with 80% of its business in international markets, 100 employees and an annual turnover in the region of £10m (GBP).

“We continue to see great opportunities for growth ahead of us, and we want to get in place the systems that will both support and accelerate it,” said Sharon Hepburn, finance director at MESL Microwave Ltd.  “Following the change in ownership in 2007 we’ve made the best we can of the systems inherited, but we are at a stage in our development where we know there are process efficiencies we can make that will increase our capacity as a business – our business systems are central to realising that goal.”

MESL Microwave’s current solution consists of an MIS system for MRP (manufacturing resource planning) supported by multiple separate databases and spreadsheets to track and manage tasks that could not be built into the MRP software.

“This meant we had lots of isolated information and everybody did not have access to the information needed to make decisions,” added Hepburn.  “Upgrading the existing system was going to be complicated and expensive, we wanted a new system that would be flexible and grow with us in the future.”

MESL conducted a full market review and then invited five companies to demonstrate their solutions before finally selecting Epicor. Key to the selection of Epicor was its flexibility to easily adapt with the business as its requirements evolve through business process management and workflows, its consistent and intuitive user interface, and the Epicor Enterprise Performance Management module.

“We have many users with different reporting needs, some high level, some very detailed, but our existing solution meant individual reports were trying to be all things to all people,” said Hepburn.  “With the Enterprise Performance Management module, staff and management will get exactly the information they need, in real-time, presented in a suitable format, whether it is a dashboard, graphs, or detailed report.  Because all the information is held in one unified system, we will be able to quickly analyse and make the decisions needed to aid our growth and be more responsive to customers.”

“Too much information can be as much of a barrier to effective business management as too little,” said Malcolm Fox, director, product marketing at Epicor. “With Enterprise Performance Management we give each user the level of information granularity they need and can be easily customised through self-service.  Because all the information is presented in real-time from a single underlying data source, staff and managers can be confident in the decisions they make based on what is presented to them, shortening decision-making and lowering risk.”

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