Epicor Kinetic is a customizable, scalable, product-centric cloud ERP designed specifically for manufacturers.
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Infor Supply Chain Management
Score 6.0 out of 10
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Infor supply chain management solutions deliver intelligent, real-time supply chain orchestration by connecting companies to their supply chain partners and digitally transforming processes from planning to delivery both within and outside the enterprise.
Infor Supply Chain Management replaces the former Lawson brand SCM product.
Epicor is an excellent system for most manufacturing customers and offers several features previously only offered on the very large (e.g. Oracle, PeopleSoft, etc) level platforms. Yet the pricing is mid-level, and the expandability through additional modules provides a great opportunity for future business growth. The architecture is easily scalable, fast, and offers great options for both on premise and hosted systems. Epicor is flexible, and large enough that regular updates and enhancements continue to be adopted to improve functionality and effectiveness. It is however, not for everyone. Competition in this sector is very good, with several mid-level systems being available at a similar price point. If you are considering adopting a new ERP system and are in the plastics space, you also owe it to yourself and your team to consider IQMS, which is becoming a de-facto standard in this segment. Also, for specific medical sectors, you will find that Epicor software validation for CFR Part 11 compliance can be quite costly-- although the software is capable of supporting this with modification. Overall, Epicor is a solid choice. Ultimately, it will be up to your team to determine what works best for your needs. You won't be disappointed with Epicor if you do the due diligence and take the time needed to properly review and demo the product. Remember though, demos are typically "best case" staged, so be sure to throw several curveballs at your vendor and bring out the unique requirements of your business.
For any company that creates purchase orders to receive parts, inventory, or any type of order, Lawson Supply Chain Management is a great tool to help automate the ability to approve and reject orders and allows users to be able to track orders much quicker. Typical types of customers that can benefit are hospitals, retail, and the public sector to name a few.
Epicor has the best product configurator that I have seen on the market. This was one of the main reasons we went with Epicor, and have not been disappointed at all.
Epicor is also one of the easiest ERP system to learn, and has many ways for users to get training. Epicor University, on-line courses, or class room settings, also user conference every year, and user support groups.
The Enterprise search ability in Epicor is great, can find parts, customers, suppliers, etc. so easily. And if you can't remember where a report or task that you want to do is on the menu, you can search for that also.
Automation approval flow is by far the best feature as it allows a user to set their own checkpoints and users to approve and reject orders.
Being able to track and find orders in the system makes it a robust application to allow for quicker delivery and receipt of POs. At the same time it helps vendors get paid quicker since everything can be tracked quicker.
User interface built for end users who do not go into Lawson everyday. This interface shows only what a requester would require to place an order similar to Amazon.
The User Interface that everyday SCM users access is out of date and needs updating. Luckily in version XI the entire user experience is being enhanced to fix this issue.
Tracking of POs and Receipts and invoices are difficult for end users to research. They usually would require lawson access and/or need to get a buyer involved. Luckily there are third party companies that built add-ons for lawson to allow end users to track this info.
Out of the box reporting doesn't have a great look to it. Many folks from finance do not like the appearance of the reports. Again Lawson has finally listened and now allows users to customize the look of those reports.
I give this rating because the software has good functionality and usability. The system does not crash and can also be maintained under overall conditions in any business function. We utilize this to communicate effectively in various areas and make informed business decisions. This is highly rated as we make other changes to our organization
If the answer to your problem is not readily available in an answer book, your response or solution will take months, if you get one at all. Problems need to be sent to support and duplicated by them before they try to fix it. This is extremely frustrating because you have to prove to Epicor that you are having an issue. If by some miracle you get by this barrier, your problem is submitted to development for review. You can't speak to them or communicate in any way directly. This group appears to be completely unconcerned about user issues or customer service. Our experiences have been negative across the board.
Everyone at our organization really appreciated "made 2 manage" because of all of the quick access and some of the capabilities in accounting. So far, Epicor is much more advanced but the two can stand side by side. These two programs cannot really be compared just because it's just not fair to compare an on-site server ERP system to a cloud-based one.
Lawson SCM has been the leader in the space for a while. All of the new competitors don't have enough experience or enough customers to fully understand the needs of our company. Lawson continues to work with their customers for ideas on new enhancements and is evident in the latest offering with a redesign of how SCM makes it easier to track and automate the SCM part of the business
The software is pretty easy to use. Things are pretty clear on how to do them and if you don't know how to do something they have instructions on how to do them or you get an error code telling you exactly what to do. I have been satisfied with my overall experience.
The ROI can be hard to quantify. We spend more time setting up and entering information up front, but we spend less time than before trying to track project costs so that evens out. Purchasing the system and implementing it was very expensive, but the benefit is the the better information can save money on projects as we know where best to spend our time and identify potential problems earlier on a project. We believe it will have a positive impact, but I'd say it will take a few years (3-4) to be worth it.
As a customer of the tool it allowed for quicker responses when issues came up. It allowed for quick feedback and issue resolution since everything could be tracked.
The ability to add images into the application allows for better use of the tool as both buyers, vendors, and the AP Department can gain advantages from the built in imaging allowed for users.
Approval flows allows for custom tailoring for what kind of expense goes to which people for approval. This makes getting orders approved easier and more concise.
