Blue Yonder Luminate Logistics vs. Epicor Prophet 21

The size and scope of the operation is the main question. In a smaller environment, or one that does not require a complex Warehouse Management Solution (WMS), RedPrairie may not be a good fit.

Incentivized

Good for distribution organizations with warehousing. Can also support both Accounts Receivable and Accounts Payable, although a more thorough Accounting package is recommended. Is strong when it comes to integrating bar codes and scanners, particularly for warehouse maintenance. Prophet 21 does include a basic CRM offering. However, it is very basic, and for any real Customer Resource management, a third-party tool is best (even recommended by Epicor.)

Incentivized

• Cycle counting--great feature for inventory accuracy.
• System directed put-away--system directs driver where to store and put materials away, keeps a warehouse in tip-top shape.
• CNZ-Count near Zero, actually set at count at zero, when a bayrow emtys out, prompts fork driver to verify that the bayrow is actually empty by doing a cycle count....great for inventory accuracy!

Incentivized

• The system allows us to pretty much design it to work the way want it to work. It is a very flexible system for the most part.
• The system doesn't let you make too many shortcuts with getting something processed. It forces you to go through the proper steps.
• The system keeps track of everything and can be easily retrieved through history searches. Detailed reports, graphs, ....

Incentivized

• Their implementation team was unable to provide examples where they successfully executed large scale multi site global deployments. May require strong client team or 3rd party implementation firm to ensure successful deployment and results.
• As of 3 years ago, their parcel shipping module was very new and unproven in marketplace.
• As of 3 years ago, Red Prairie had limited offering in modules that complement the WMS such as trading partner management and distributed order management. If you truly just need warehouse management capabilities this might not matter. For us, this meant we would need to involve more solution providers or internal development to address supply chain initiatives.

Incentivized

• Prophet 21 could use better management tools for its own data. The database has a tendency to bloat and over time can grow exceedingly large without administrative intervention.
• The UI can be cluttered at times and the windows tend to jump into focus or drop from focus when it isn't expected causing user confusion and data entry errors.
• Branding on forms and the UI is almost nonexistent. Customizations of screen aesthetics and form layout options should be easier and not require custom programming.

Again, the product was good. Customer service was OK at best. For any new installations or upgrades, I would seek a third party servicer/installer who would be more flexible in contract negotiations and provide service guarantees beyond what could expected with RedPrairie itself. If you choose to deal with RedPrairie directly, prepare for a lengthy negotiation process.

Incentivized

I've used Epicor Prophet 21 for about 12 years (in various iterations). It started out as CommerceCenter by Prophet 21 then became Prophet 21 by Activant and then Prophet 21 by Epicor. So frequently, when a software company is acquired, it stops being great. That has not been the case with Epicor Prophet 21. Over the years they've been under Epicor, the product has just gotten better and better, with major extensibility enhancements and new mobile components coming online.

Incentivized

I found RedPraire to be the best system I have used of the years.

Incentivized

I don't believe there is much you can't do in Epicor Prophet 21. Some of the processes, though, are fairly rigid with customizations and would either need to be tailored for another approach or the internal process would need to be changed to match how Epicor Prophet 21 is designed.

Incentivized

When hosted locally, you don't have to worry about outages unless the power goes out and the battery backups fail. It can also be hosted in the cloud which is as reliable as your internet connection. There's really no concern for outages in the software by itself. Outages are controlled by external factors.

Incentivized

I do feel like there are some screens and reports that could be streamlined. Prophet 21 likes to load features all at once when going into a program but a quicker load time into order entry, for example, is worth having a little latency while a non-essential tab that doesn't get used very often is opened.

Incentivized

The support is some of the worst I've seen across all the 122 software vendors we work with. Everything is offshore and it is always vague answers, links to wiki's that don't apply, and when we pay for project support they charge $200 an hour for someone who works remote from Mexico to call you on a poor quality VoIP connection that isn't all that well trained and often doesn't have basic IT skills

Incentivized

The on-site training was great. I give it a 9 because the trainer was a chain smoker who had to excuse herself a lot to smoke. Kind of unprofessional. She was a very good trainer though.

Incentivized

I had a great time with the online training. Most of the online trainings were live which meant you had opportunity to interact with instructors. I liked trying to derail them by posting funny comments to the chat window. The only complaint I had about these is they weren't recorded for later use. Well, another complaint is that they were sometimes too short.

Incentivized

The overall implementation is smooth. Prophet 21 sends someone on-site for as many days as you need them to step through the initial implementation. Data conversion is the biggest trick. Make sure you get help with that portion of implementation. Also, be sure to offer plenty of training incentives to keep people coming back for more training. A little money spent up front will save you tons of headaches later.

Incentivized

RedPrarie seems to have been better than Aloha. I will say that I used Aloha a very long time ago and it is probably light years ahead now. Aloha seemed to be a little more flexible in what you could do. The major downfall was you had a system that needed to be connected to the POS network directly on site that would be used only for reporting. This would require you to have another PC for computing needs. Like I said before, this is probably something that has changed in the newer world of Aloha.

Incentivized

I have not looked at them in detail, but have received a lot of positive comments through out the industry, we're on the fence in regards to viability of cloud based solutions, but from the information we have received it seems like NetSuite has developed a good solution for the industry.

Incentivized

Prophet 21 is very reliable. The database is robust and well designed. The application is also hard to break. If there's one feature I don't like, it's that they haven't accounted for the dreaded single quote. That's kind of the bane of Microsoft SQL's existence. They need to escape that character in every field that will accept it in the system. Otherwise, the system throws all kinds of errors and many times will crash.

Incentivized

• Warehousing errors were reduced by almost 12% with Blue Yonder Luminate Logistics.
• Order processing was done at more than 7% of the average TAT with the use of this service.
• End-user & ops team had higher productivity by almost 15% after integrating the service in day-to-day activities.

Incentivized

• P21 has been very good with how we handle cash collections and had a positive impact for us.
• P21 user interface saves time and thus makes people more efficient by allowing customizations.
• With ordering, inventory, customer information, and CRM all in one location it makes the need for other programs like goldmine become obsolete.