Epicor ERP new version 11 named Kinetic

Epicor is launching Version 11 of it’s long standing Epicor ERP solution on June 10th. With it, they are rebranding it with a new name and an updated user interface. 

The Epicor announcement goes on to say:

We offer the ideal platform for manufacturers like you who make the things that keep the world moving. We see this across all industries we serve. Through our recent evolution to a great new user experience, it became clear that Kinetic is more than a name for an industry-leading user experience. It represents the lively, energetic impact of your entire ERP solution to accelerate your ambitions.

Kinetic is the new name for Epicor ERP!

You will see this name change with the next release, Kinetic is currently planned for general availability on June 10, 2021, and this will showcase an industry-leading experience for users that is:

  • Made for use anywhere, browser-based in the cloud, on any device with a consistent experience
  • Made for personal use with guided workflow, easy tailoring, and the ability to connect digitally
  • Made for efficiency and greater productivity with a simple, easy to use interface that offers industry-focused features and leverages intelligence for greater automation
How To Successfully Select An ERP System in Eight Easy Steps

What is an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system?

It is a series of software applications or modules that collects data from your sales, purchasing, finance, inventory, supply chain, manufacturing and quality functions into a common database so that your company can share the information, coordinate activities and collaborate. 

Are you looking for your first ERP system or looking to upgrade from an existing system?

The evaluation, selection and implementation process is a long-term strategic decision for your organization. This article will help guide you through the process.

These are the eight easy steps to successful select the best ERP system for your organization:

Step 1: Evaluation 

Form an evaluation committee that includes top management, functional experts that I call SME (Subject Matter Expert) from each department within your company. Consider hiring us to assist. Throughout the selection process, end each step with a consensus of all members to gain enterprise-wide acceptance of the decided upon ERP system. 

Step 2: Make An Assessment 

Assess your existing business processes and the scale of your operation, so you can determine what’s being done well. Identify gaps, duplicate work, inefficiencies and key challenges that could be solved by implementing an ERP system. 

Step 3: Establish Criteria 

Based on that assessment, Develop criteria to evaluate available ERP solutions. Criteria could include required functionality based on findings from the assessment step. This could include specific features that could related to your unique business processes, desire a platform that integrates easily with your existing customer’s data or systems, available budget (Cost) or anything else your committee can think of. Group the criteria according to importance to your business, i.e. very important, important, and less important. Assign a score to each to make the evaluation easier. 

Here are some example criteria: 

Industry Expertise: How well does the ERP vendor understand your industry? Does the vendor offer industry best practices or pre-defined processes that are generalized or horizontally focused? ERP solutions should at the very least address your mission critical business requirements specific to your industry. 

Total Cost of Ownership. Determine the long-term TCO for hardware, software, and support—pre- and post-implementation. 

Customization without consequences: If you need to modify the ERP system for it to match your business processes, ensure your ERP vendor provides a platform or customization layer that doesn’t prevent you from upgrading from one version to another with out more out of pocket expense. Does your ERP vendor’s architecture punish you due to customizing the software to match your business processes? 

Multi-Site Operations Support. If you need to collaborate with multiple operations then ensure your ERP vendor can support multi-site operations. Can your ERP vendor support all your locations with a small centralized IT staff? Do they require complicated architectures? 

Customer Support. Does the ERP vendor have its own in-house support or does it outsource? You’ll gain the most out of your investment if you have access to a customer care center that can answer your key application and technical questions, solve your complex technical or software related issues, and advise on best industry practices. 

Step 4: Schedule Consultations 

Arrange a 10-minute phone consultation with both a sales representative and product expert from as many different ERP vendors as possible. This “discovery call” will provide you with better insight on the vendor and its solution than if you were to rely solely on brochures and sales literature. 

Step 5: Create a Shortlist 

Shortlist three to five ERP solutions that best meet your business needs. Your discovery calls will help you eliminate the solutions which are poor fits. 

Step 6: Make Contact 

Contact the vendors of your shortlisted ERP systems to arrange presentations and product demonstrations. 

Step 7: Prepare Questions That Address Your Concerns 

How each vendor responds will help you determine the best fit for your company. 

Step 8: Check Vendor References 

Visit and consult companies where the ERP system has been implemented. Find out if the system is working as expected, and what the company likes or dislikes. If there were issues, then determine how the vendor resolved them. 

Conclusion 

If your company followed these 8 steps, your evaluation committee will be able to select an ERP solution based on how well it met your selection criteria, how it performed during the demonstration, and how the references checked out. 

Finally, with your selected ERP vendor, spend the time to scope the entire project, from start to finish. Work with your ERP vendor to map your critical milestones and chart your course to success. 

Why choose Ludwig Solutions to help you select your next ERP?

Ludwig Solutions drives business growth. We provide flexible, industry-specific knowledge to assist you with selecting and implementing the best ERP product to make your business processes more efficient and give your executive team the tools to make proactive decisions. Giving you the tools to become the leader in your industry. While following these 8 steps, we’ve found recommending Epicor ERP E10 has benefited the majority of our customers. Epicor ERP E10 is designed for manufacturing, distribution, retail, and service industry customers. The Epicor product has more than 40 years of experience. Our customers’ unique business processes and operational requirements is built into every solution we implement. With a deep understanding of your industry, Ludwig Solutions spur growth while managing complexity. The result is a powerful solution that frees up resources allowing your business to become more profitable.

Ludwig Solutions + Pegasus Technology Solutions

Ludwig Solutions is proud to announce a partnership with industry-leading MSP, PegasusTechnology Solutions (@Pegasus__Tech)! Through this partnership, Ludwig now brings top-tier Managed IT and Managed Security Services to our valued customers. We are excited to add MSP to our service offerings so we can continue helping your company solve business challenges through technology. #MSP #MSSP #IT #LudwigSolutions #Epicor #Pegasustechsolutions

“Setup Guidance And Troubleshooting Support” & “Epicor E10 Upgrade”

“I have had the opportunity to work with Andy at Ludwig Solutions on several occasions.  He has provided both setup guidance and troubleshooting support for our Epicor 9 and 10 system.  The service was professional, friendly and most of all convenient.  I am excited to finally have a resource like this to help solve those hard to reach issues.”

Epicor / Concur Service Connect Workflow

“Had an opportunity to work with Andy in implement workflow process for Accounts Payable using Epicor Service Connect. Not only was he professional, knowledgeable, sincere and a pleasure to work with be delivered as scheduled. His services goes above and beyond what anyone could possibly expect in terms of service and results. I highly recommend him without reservation to anyone in need of Epicor services.”

“Setup Guidance And Troubleshooting Support” & “Epicor E10 Upgrade”

APIVOT LLC launches new API platform

Owners of 3Bar17 LLC and Ludwig Solutions LLC team up to create a new API platform called APIVOT. APIVOT auto-maps API Schemas and responses to a unified object. (It is a platform that aggregates multiple API’s (Rest, Database, … ) into one consolidate interface.) This interface allows you to combine all of your enterprise data into one source. The aPivot platform allows you to interact with most API’s.  Their first application released on this new platform is a product called ProActAPI. ProActAPI connects to Epicor E10 and makes cycle counting super easy. If your company is using Epicor E10 to do inventory cycle counting or physical inventory counts, ProActAPI will allow you to complete the counts in a third of the time.

Are you tired of dealing with

Expensive symbol handheld that are slow and continuously break?Sloppy hand writing on paper tags?Wet or dirty returned paper tags?Printing and reprinting paper tags?Countless hours of data entry?

If the answer is yes to any of these questions, ProActAPI is the solution for you. Anyone with a phone or tablet connected to your internal WiFi is able to select an active count cycle, sort tags (by bin, by part or by tag number), start counting product and entering qty’s. It’s really that simple.

This solution requires the purchase of the APIVOT appliance, a VMWARE APIVOT server or cloud hosted APIVOT server (Cloud hosted server is only available for Epicor E10 cloud users).

ProActAPI connects to Epicor with the users Epicor login credentials. Our solution does not store any Epicor data. ProActAPI is as fast of your internal WiFi speed.

ROI for the cycle counting product averages around 10 months depending on number of users. ROI is based on current number of employees * average hourly rate of employees as a base. Cost savings of using ProActAPI / cost of product.

APIVOT has big plans for the future. They plan to have more Epicor related modules completed by the end of this year.

Those modules could include:

A dashboard module that will allow Epicor users to build a BAQ and display the data to any chart or graph from Google’s API. Display a report anywhere on any device.A field service module that will allow service technicians to enter a service job real time. No more data entry at the end of the day.API connection wizard that will allow you to push data from one API to another via a schedule.

#Epicor, #apivot, #ludwigSolutions, #cyclecount, #inventory, #E10