M1 vs. Worklair

Implementation is by far the weakest link in the ECI/M1 process. Although the tool is powerful, the client is expected to drive the process of learning the tool, planning the meetings with consultants, identifying risks and making mitigation plans, etc. without any samples, guidance or assistance on the part of ECI. The tool is best suited to high volume, standard product manufacturers who build to inventory or to order without much variation. The shop floor routing and time tracking are straightforward if you can master the convoluted Unit Of Measure calculations. The tool is either hosted locally or accessed through Remote Desktop. Shop floor is web enabled but the main desktop for M1 is still a relay which makes connectivity a potential issue. Moving this platform to a truly web hosted environment would substantially improve connectivity and eliminate compatibility issues with Apple products

Incentivized

Worklair substituted for us several other tools and now we have task boards, chats, Gantt chart, etc - all in one place which is super convenient and you don't have to switch between different tabs or windows, feel less overwhelmed and stay more focused. The only thing they don't have, but I heard they're planning it, is the integration with the Calendar and emails. For now I still have to check my calendar and emails separately. If it happens that they integrate it in Worklair so literally everything will be in one place - would be awesome.

• Manage inventory counts. Good precision on quantities in and out, through shipping, MI, MR, and receipts.
• Job costing shows great details on labor, operations, and materials to be used. I wished that would do better in outside operations that would return, but we still think it is great.
• Ability to track changes (changelog), showing all changes that had in a particular place. Such as where, when, and by whom a line item unit price was changed in a PO.
• Link, traceability, keeping history. If done correctly, it is amazing to keep the history of a part/lot.
• The amount of user rights/customization is unbelievable. It can be hard to set up in the beginning, but it is great that you can give some very specific access to a user, and it is not (in general) as a package.

Incentivized

• Project Management
• Team Planing
• Dashboard
• Gannt Chart
• Workload
• Task Board
• Budget Management
• Invoicing

• 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.

Incentivized

• Since this product is quite new on the market, they are improving it constantly and sometimes small bugs happen. Their ream reacts very fast to the clients feedback.

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

Incentivized

As I mentioned earlier, despite of some small bugs sometimes and given the fact that the platform is relatively new on the market, their team is very responsive and passionate about their product, so they quickly react to feedback and provide improvements to the system.

Support has been great and timely

Incentivized

Their team is very responsive.

Our customization requirements were not that high and based on a price/cost benefit M1 was the winner. SAP was considered but the upfront costs and challenging learning curve together with the lack of flexibility in the SAP HANA public cloud version made the M1 choice more natural. SAP Services is usually more expensive compared to M1.

Incentivized

We selected Worklair because of its integrity and because you don't have to use multiple tools simultaneously (e.g. chat and project management separately in different tools).

• Time savings having to only enter certain information once and have it follow through the entire order process from quote to cash

Incentivized

• Worklair substituted for other multiple tools we used (like Asana, Slack, etc), so it was worth switching to it and it was beneficial for us from day 1.