Global Shop Solutions ERP software provides applications that help manufacturers to deliver quality parts on time, with applications that include Shop Management, Planning & Scheduling, Inventory, Accounting, Quality Control, and CRM.
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M1
Score 7.5 out of 10
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M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.
I like the SFDC screens for the manufacturing floor. There is no need for licenses for these and the amount of information that is available suits our needs. We somtimes have rush orders and it seems to take more time to collect data in GS than it does to make the parts
The M1 ERP is tailored for small to medium organizations, offering good features at least in the components utilized by my organization such as customizable workflows, user-friendly dashboards, ability to process orders, and track the entire orders lifecycle. It also has good customer interaction features in the CRM part. It provides robust data security, and offers scalable modules to grow with your business. Implementation is not challenging if you don't have so many customizations in the software.
The layout is dated and hard to navigate at times. You need to go into different sections to access functions of the system, which can be confusing - this is one of the largest frustrations we face because we need to search for sections that are not commonly used.
Updates seem to cause issues with the overall system and it takes several attempts with customer service to get issues resolved. We are behind in our updates because of this. Each update push causes us to shut down because sections then don't work correctly due to patches needing support to completely update them. We were unable to access customer transactions for a good part of the day because of the last update.
Errors happen more often than not. We have random errors pop up that cause us to have to close out the system in its entirety, losing any work we have done. We need to restart the system and hope other errors don't populate before we can move forward. Calling customer support is not helpful with this, we are told that these errors happen sometimes. There is not a fix.
Part/Router numbers randomly disappear. The Router/Part number will need to be rebuilt before we can move forward. It's frustrating. Again, customer support can not tell us the root cause of the issue.
Help section of Global Shop Solutions is not helpful - it has a lot of technical jargon and at times is not easily understood. There are many sections that look to be more IT-based than user-based. Also, there are out of date sections so you might not be able to find what you are looking for. Training modules available for an extra cost.
Some of the functions are pretty detailed - and so they take a while to generate screens and pages in reports.
We actually use it for 2 companies we own - and it would be nice if the inter company communication was a little smoother. It's hard to share some data, and not everything is possible to be shared.
Customized reports need to backed up before any updates to M1 or they're lost. It seems M1 overwrites the report folders everytime you run an update - so you have to keep track of what you've changed in Crystal Reports and restore it.
It is user-friendly and easy to navigate. There are many great tools that you can use if you get stuck or just need a quick reference on how a specific item performs.
Because it would be helpful if ECI would provide better documentation, communication and workflows to understand how each field interacts within the system and how each of those touch other areas within M1. It would also be useful if ECI would provide prescheduled training for how to customize things with M1 through Design Studio
M1 is light years ahead in overall cost and proficiency. It allows so much more control and flexibility as compared to its competitors. When choosing M1 we went through many demos and M1 was the only ERP that met our needs and still does. We also control our own data which is a big plus for us.
The ROI on this software is incredible, I seldom gush but I genuinely cannot see any industry where this wouldn't be applicable and useful.
The forecasting alone is worth the price of admission
We love the simplicity and elegance of handling our IT inventory
About the closest thing to a complaint would be sometimes the updates can be a little fiddly with specific dot.net requirements but they're great about supporting even aging hardware and OS's.
