Aptean Encompix ERP is an enterprise resource planning software solution. It is built specifically for engineer-to-order and custom manufacturers that design and build complex, custom products.
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Oracle E-Business Suite
Score 8.1 out of 10
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Oracle E-Business Suite is a comprehensive suite of integrated, global business applications. The suite includes cross-industry capabilities spanning ERP, CRM and supply chain planning.
If an organization often makes standard products and purchases standard material for those products, then this ERP suits well for such scenarios, where there is a standard list of material - which can be used to build Item Master records in Encompix. And it's well suited for companies which do keep inventory / stock. Not well suited if the organization doesn't have item masters, and every product is a custom product.
Oracle eBusiness Suite is the best combination of CRM and ERP. Oracle helps us in managing the entire process of Sales and Marketing. The best feature is that it is highly user-friendly. We can easily manage the entire process of marketing from running a campaign to managing it and getting an interesting prospect than making a lead to making an opportunity by recording each and every conversation from day 1 to last day so that customer feels its valued by the company after that finally getting a business from the prospect.
The EBS Oracle Order Management and Shipping Execution solution allows the creation of an integrated, seamless order-to-cash process and accurately capture of customer orders across multiple channels.
Orchestration of order details for seamless fulfillment execution.
Efficient shipment planning and confirmation.
Communication of order status information to customers throughout the order lifecycle.
Scheduling module - we had initially expected this ERP system to handle the scheduling part for us, but it is not easy to do customization to the extent needed for us.
Technical or the implementation team support can be improved, as it is not up to the standard.
Not well suited for Engineer to Order / custom product manufacturing companies.
Because the application is working globally, it sometimes hangs and the connection is dropped.
It should have more shortcuts to make it easier to develop macros. I create many macros and use the "sendkeys" command in VBA, due to the lack of these shortcuts, it is not possible to automate the process.
For now I can not think of other areas that require improvement.
After almost 5 years, we have a full control of this ERP System. We are able to implement new functionalities and modules without any major "consulting" expenses. As of today we are making almost 90% of the personalization/customization and implementation all in house. Once [it] is tuned, [it] keeps running very well with no major issues.
The various forms - like order entry forms that allow the uses to enter sales orders and the ability to personalize the views based on end user needs - are easy to use and follow standard business processes. The new release has a big focus on usability and forms now have a familiar web look and feel which has increased usability considerably.
Because of the transactional nature of the system this software is available 24 X 7, and IT is responsible for making sure the system is available during normal business hours.
The performance of the product is very good. Given the transactional nature of the system one of the key focus areas for IT is to make sure performance is not affected for internal reasons. This can also depend on the server configuration and setup. For example, performance on Exadata machine is far superior to other Linux custom systems that companies choose to deploy. In general though, as already pointed out, the platform is now very stable and has few bugs. Whenever there are any issues, the cause is usually customizations that we have made to the platform, rather than out-of-the-box standard functionality.
In general, support has not been great - particularly standard (non premium) support . The main issue is that our IT staff has been using this platform for years and is very knowledgeable Whenever something goes wrong, we usually have a very precise idea of what the problem is. We are skilled at problem diagnosis. But the Oracle support process is very rigid and slow. Typically, we are required to go through a lengthy diagnosis process where they ask us multiple questions sometimes over several days and we are obliged to talk to different people with differing levels of knowledge. Since we already know what the problem is, we really just want a patch or a bug fix, but it takes days to get there instead of minutes. This can be very frustrating. This is a big part of the reason why we pay for premium support. But it's still a bit disappointing.
The key success factors for the implementation was project management, in-house expertise in IT and time. The implementation process started with the initial evaluation with the initial upgrade on a test system and mapping out the gaps and requirements. We did work with Oracle to understand the new functionality R12 had to offer and did another upgrade and researched solutions. With the use of software development cycle procedures there were conference room pilots with IT, business users. We then refined the project plan to the core key details, performed mock go-live implementations and finally upgraded the software. Overall, this was a very successful process.
Materials module in Encompix ERP is more robust over the Abas ERP. We had previously used Abas before Encompix, and the reports are more robust in Encompix, and custom reports were possible. Bill of Materials can be uploaded in Encompix, unlike Abas. Item Masters feature was available. Vendor cross reference and performance tracking are some good features as well.
We explored Coupa, SAP, PeopleSoft, Salesforce. We chose Oracle based on value for money, features it offers and the easy availability of vast talent pool in the market. There are many trained Oracle product specialists readily available in the market. This helps us to tap experts when needed easily. Coupa does not have a Project Accounting module. SAP was too expensive. PeopleSoft is more catered towards to human resources software, while Salesforce is for CRM. Oracle has better financials and project portfolio management suite when compared to the competition and this what we needed.
