Disappointing Implementation...Here's Hope the Tool is as Powerful as Reported
Updated February 27, 2024
Disappointing Implementation...Here's Hope the Tool is as Powerful as Reported
Score 3 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with M1
As a consultant to a $36M manufacturing and printing company, we selected M1 as an MRP solution to replace the existing MIS system which lacked scheduling and customizable features that were needed. We looked at several options and went with ECI/M1 as an established company with many years of supporting manufacturing. They were also extremely confident their software could accommodate our customized production requirements.
- Allows for component parts to be scheduled independently through the plant
- Once parts are built, it is easy to duplicate/reuse parts across they quoting and ordering modules and customers
- If used properly and consistently, M1 will provide accurate job cost analysis to determine estimating, training, efficiency and other issues.
- M1 is not designed for short run/custom manufacturing. It is difficult to "change sizes" of parts used in production because you have to re-generate the part and recalculate the Unit of Measure
- Configured parts (auto calculations to address the above point) are not easily understood and need to be custom coded by consultants. This can become costly very quickly and requires the client to create all of the calculations and possible variations before any coding can be completed.
- My experience with their implementation left much to be desired. Despite claims of there being a "highly structured onboarding process", my project was 18 months past due, there was no onboarding tool or "what to expect from the implementation" session, the project manager assigned (and billed to my client) was not qualified/non-value add, the project plan was a generic task list template and included modules we had not purchased and did not account for various adaptations we required. There were no "best practices" implemented for our industry/custom manufacturing application. There were no project risk assessments or business requirements development sessions conducted despite multiple requests to do these exercises.
- Escalation through ECI's customer experience office and to various Directors/SVPs yielded more meeting attendees with little to contribute. Little leadership/accountability/drive to resolution was demonstrated on the part of ECI. My client had to push for credit for 6 months of hosting services to cover some of the schedule overruns.
- Several customizations/adaptations that were addressed repeatedly in the sales cycle were not effectively communicated to the implementation team. Even after these needs were clarified, numerous delays and resource reassignments (5 different outsourced contract developers were assigned during a 12 month period to address the one customization needed for M1 to communicate with our legacy MIS system), the implementation missed the (4th) GO LIVE target date. The customization was not completed for Go Live and may mean manually closing the division's Feb and March month ends.
- Unable to discern at this time.
The scheduling board and shop load explorer are key benefits to managing workflow through the plant. Production time tracking and job cost analysis provide real time feedback on efficiency and accuracy. Planning and scheduling process/features provide the necessary pre-screening steps to prevent jobs from hitting the floor prematurely. Once jobs are released to the floor, they must be exactly correct to run properly. Untangling jobs once they are in process is problematic.
We considered several other option but M1 was presented as the most flexible and robust option that could handle our custom manufacturing.
Do you think M1 delivers good value for the price?
Not sure
Are you happy with M1's feature set?
Yes
Did M1 live up to sales and marketing promises?
No
Did implementation of M1 go as expected?
No
Would you buy M1 again?
No