Epicor ERP - Make it what you need it to be
September 27, 2017
Epicor ERP - Make it what you need it to be
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Software Version
Epicor ERP On-Premises
Overall Satisfaction with Epicor ERP
Epicor ERP is used across the company to manage very large and complex engineering design and assembly jobs. Every project is unique and although low volume (1-10 units) tend to comprise tens of thousands of sub-components. Final products are automation systems for aircraft and spacecraft assembly. Teams of engineers (electrical, mechanical, controls and software) design, assemble, install and support the products using Epicor for all procurement and capture of labor costs on the jobs. Due to the unique nature of the projects no inventory is stocked (raw or WIP) but Epicor is flexible enough to allow this. Built-in customization tools allow a great deal of flexibility to tailor the system to unique environments. Query and reporting tools, including multi-level publish-subscribe dashboards allow very good access to critical decision-making information. Epicor's HCM (human capital management) module with Candidate Connect has been critical in addressing EEOC reporting and compliance efforts as well as reducing HR workload for managing over 700 employees.
- Customization - extremely flexible ways to make the system fit any environment. In particular forms and user interface optimization.
- Query and reporting tools (like dashboards) for getting information (and knowledge) out of the system that is needed for real-time operations decision making.
- New with Epicor ERP 10 the "all Microsoft stack" of ICE 3.0 tools and MS SQL Server are very fast and a much more standard development platform. Epicor has gone to great lengths to streamline and simplify the underlying architecture. Moving to SQL server has yielded 4X performance.
- Epicor has a long history of supporting manufacturing and has evolved the ERP system from its job shop roots to accommodate many different manufacturing modes.
- The switching from Crystal Reports to SSRS reporting was a real setback. SSRS has its place but in some cases Crystal is clearly superior. It CAN work with ERP 10 but takes more effort and has loss of access control if using ODBC.
- Support has limited to no access to developers (the "wall" as they call it) so for new and very technical issues Supports response is limited. Escalation can be difficult for highly technical problems that don't fit their knowledgebase.
- Search function in EpicWeb (customer portal) is limited and often produces wildly off-target results.
- Job BoM/MoM structures that are very complex (thousands of assemblies and levels) can get corrupted using tools built in to the system (like drag & drop) and whole sections can become unlinked and disappear. More typical assemblies of a few dozen components are fine but very complex jobs push the limits.
- ROI not quantifiable for the system but clearly the complexity of the jobs and accurate job costing would not be possible without an integrated manufacturing system and Epicor ERP is the most capable of being customizable for the unique environment.
- Every employee is a "buyer" and has the ability to purchase whatever is needed for the project they are working on or their job function. In an extremely flat organizational structure (three levels for 700+ self-managed employees) anything that avoids barriers to productivity is a huge plus.
- Massive customizations in previous versions has made upgrading to ERP 10 a lengthy process but built-in customization tools will make this easier going beyond ERP 10.
- The system was implemented prior to the Projects module so everything is crammed into a job structure. Switching to Projects (made of jobs) will be a huge organizational streamlining.
Epicor has been in use here for 15+ years so the "history" of evaluating other systems has been lost to the mists of time. In the view of this evaluator Epicor ERP is at the least the equal, if not superior, of any enterprise level Tier 1 ERP system and is built on the most technically advanced architecture available. Scalable from "Mom & Pop Job Shops" to multi-national corporations.