Choosing an ERP Provider: Why LOGI-SOLUTIONS Syspro ERP Specialist?

Company Background

A local Montreal-based Food and Beverage Company was dealing with a number of functionality challenges, as well as a lack of support, with their current ERP System.

Teh company needed a proper production planning and inventory tracking solution including cradle to grave lot traceability.  Inventory was reported periodically and involved multiple data sources, resulting in a lot of off-system number crunching towards meeting Head Office reporting requirements.  They were in need of a single integrated ERP solution that would manage the supply chain properly and provide the required information and reporting.

 

Decision Making Process

 

In summer 2019, LOGI-SOLUTIONS presented The Company with a proposed SYSPRO ERP v8 solution after having reviewed and analyzed their specific requirements. At the time, another solution was chosen, with which several decision makers had prior experience.

After discovering the solution required a lot of customization in order to meet their needs, the project was paused. The Company reached out to LOGI-SOLUTIONS again in January 2021, remembering the quality of the analysis, the expertise of the team, and the presentation delivered a year and a half earlier.

LOGI-SOLUTIONS went back to the table to refresh our understanding of their needs, and eventually an agreement was reached in May 2021.

The Decision-Making process isn’t just about money. When you choose an ERP, you also choose the team that will get you up and running.

The LOGI-SOLUTIONS team was made up of 3 key team players:

  • Rod Matheson: Analysis and Functional Specification 
  • Adam Leslie and Ajoy Sud: Project Management and Delivery

The company met some of the LOGI-SOLUTIONS team, reviewed the initial project scoping and solution design and gained a lot of confidence about LOGI-SOLUTIONS’ abilities and experience. In addition, a lot of the anxiety that typically accompanies large decisions like implementing a new ERP is taken off the table by our fixed price policy. LOGI-SOLUTIONS’ years of experience and ability to problem solve on the fly were also big factors in their decision to go forward with our solution.

 

The Challenge

 

The Company was operating on an old, outdated system without support and a serious lack of functionality.

LOGI-SOLUTIONS was tasked with deploying a solution that met specific requirements, as well as to train a team of people who had never used any kind of cloud web-based ERP technology. The existing solution that SYSPRO ERP Software replaced was a character-based solution, so The Company and their staff jumped from DOS through Windows all the way to Web. The Solution was deployed in the Cloud. The Company had a very custom process that they relied heavily on in their day-to-day operations. It was crucial for LOGI-SOLUTIONS to analyze the process, design it’s replacement in SYSPRO ERP and gain The Company’s confidence that this solution would not only replace their current level of functionality, but enhance it.

It was important for the users to become autonomous in their usage of the solution, and that they were able to personalize their Syspro workspace.

Using SYSPRO ERP, we were able to integrate all of their business processes into a permanent inventory management and real-time General Ledger providing the business with far superior and timely data. We also replaced The Company’s unique production planning process with SYSPRO’s standard MRP process, which has made the planning process much easier and more accurate.

 

Importance of a Functional Analysis

 

In order to create a solution that met The Company’s needs, LOGI-SOLUTIONS led off the project with our standard functional specification step, where we document all of The Company’s business processes and map this to the software. This ensures The Company and LOGI-SOLUTIONS are on the same page when it comes to understanding both The Company’s needs and the SYSPRO ERP Software.

LOGI-SOLUTIONS’ lengthy experience helps us consider the multiple ways to configure the software solution, while blending in best practices, in order to make the optimum choice for The Company and this specific project. This avoids going on various tangents trying to find the right fit – for example, the implication of auto-depleting lots or requiring operators to select each lot.

Importance of Delivering on Promises

The solution had several key requirements, including:

  1. Cloud deployment
  2. Lot traceability (food product)
  3. Establishment of permanent inventory including bin locations for the first time
  4. A production and purchase planning tool,
  5. Request to maintain the old system in parallel strictly for planning, until we proved the SYSPRO MRP process

How does our team’s experience as a long time SYSPRO ERP Elite Partner impact our ability to deliver on all of these?

LOGI-SOLUTIONS’ extensive experience enables us to chase down and resolve problem areas, for example finding and adjusting for syntax differences used in personalizing Windows screens vs. the new Web-based screens.

 

Final Results and Benefits

“I did not think you would be able to reproduce my scheduling system within Syspro, this has turned out to be much easier to use”

General Manager

 

Implementation and ERP deployment Timeline:

The proposal was accepted and signed in May 2021, and was followed up with functional specification and decisions on the cloud platform which were driven mainly by client availability.  A site orientation was done in late June, and the implementation efforts began in July. Go-live was met as planned in November 2021, which met the Controller’s commitment to head office to be on a new reporting system for November.

 

Inventory Tracking:

The Company moved from a periodic to permanent inventory tracking system directly within the ERP, so there are no more spreadsheets or systems being used on the side, and everyone is sharing the same, accurate information in real-time.

While some transactions are still being written down on paper due to a lack of WI-FI connectivity at the source in the plant, extending wireless coverage is the next area of focus in order to capture the majority of inventory movements at the ‘coalface’, rather than in the office.

This will set the stage for them to consider warehouse scanning for data capture in the near future.

Planning Time:

With the adoption of integrated planning in SYSPRO ERP, planning time has been reduced and users have been given full visibility across all data within a single system. They have full visibility on all supply and demand activities. Previously, the inventory planning was limited in scope, however now all system activities are taken into consideration with no additional analysis required.

Web Based System:

The move from a Character-Based system to a Web-Based System has delivered an intuitive interface and presents concise Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), in a robust yet flexible solution.

Simplified Reporting:

Simplified reporting processes have saved the Finance Team plenty of time meeting their requirements for Head Office. There are no additional sub-systems, real-time transaction posting, permanent inventory, and a simplified month-end process.

Going Forward

Implementing the SYSPRO ERP v8 solution has created a springboard environment for other solutions, such as production machine integrations or a Warehouse Management System to introduce scanning and barcoding technologies to the operation.