Category Archives: Manufacturing

How BizSlate is Bringing Sexy Back to ERP! Part I

As per our last few posts, ERP used to be sexy, but hasn’t been that way in a while. That needs to change, because ERP should be sexy. Fortunately for us, BizSlate has decided to do something about it. They agree that ERP should be appealing, exciting, glamorous, trendy, and just a little risqué and are doing something about it.

Appealing

Built from the ground up to be 100% web-based SaaS, and taking lessons from best-of-breed SaaS e-Supply Management solutions, which themselves took lessons from best-of-breed B2C consumer e-Commerce solutions, the system is friendly, streamlined, easy on the eyes, and useable. Realizing that success stems from use and use stems from desire to use and desire to use stems from knowing it’s easier, and more satisfying, to use the system than to bypass it (which is a common problem among all types of systems in a modern organization), BizSlate put a lot of effort into designing a system that
was not only easy to use, but that a person who needs an ERP would want to use.

Exciting

New catalog season used to mean new headache from hell. As per our recent post on how It’s Time to Bring Sexy Back to ERP!, if your new product line contained 20 pairs of footwear in 7 different sizes and a minimum of 2 colours each, and each needed its own SKU, that was at least 280 products you needed to create one at a time! With all of the coding and cross-coding required, it was probably 15 minutes a product, or 30 products a day, or two weeks of data entry for some poor intern just to create a starting product catalog! But not with BizSlate. With its batch create capability, you define a template, define the characteristics that define the variations, define the different instantiations of those characteristics (e.g. size, 6-13, and colour, black and brown), define the starting SKU, define the ending SKU pattern, and press a button and — BAM! — it generates all 280 draft product entries. If you’re happy, press another button, and — BAM! — 280 products created and added to your ERP. If not, go back, alter the template, characteristics, and variation rules and go again. If there are custom values that need to be defined, you can populate just those fields in a spreadsheet view during the validation step. Retail and distributor customers that used to spend weeks and weeks creating new product entries for new product lines now spend a few days and generate hundreds of entries in just a few hours. It’s an exciting development in ERP usability.

Glamorous

As per our last post, traditional ERP is unsophisticated. This means a number of things. First, as per our last post, if you wanted to define multiple, sophisticated, commission plans for internal and third party sales people based on category, product, volume, and stock-type, you had to buy an ERP from Imaginationland, because that was the only place an ERP exists where such a task is possible. But not with BizSlate — they’ve thought through this need and built a commission definition and management system to support even the most demanding client. But this isn’t the only feature that makes this modern take on an ERP glamorous compared to the dinosaurs it is competing against.

Traditional ERP is quite dumb. Typically it’s not even as smart as the relational database it is built on. For example, let’s say the value list for shoe sizes is the same as the value list for sneaker sizes, think you can abstract that list and re-use it? Not a chance — create it every time you need it, buddy. Building a goods receipt and the value is already in the purchase order and want to re-use it? Copy and paste.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Want to re-use similar types of reporting structures or entry forms, because you use the same data in inventory management, order management, invoice management, etc. and don’t want to re-invent the wheel? Fat chance! Rebuild for the use-case and repopulate as above.

But not with BizSlate, who have built their streamlined ERP around repetitive mechanisms. Value lists, forms, and report components are all implemented as reusable components that can be reused wherever they are needed. Need that size list across your clothing line? No problem. Need that discount percentage by spend across your electronics category? No problem. Want to re-use the same entry form template for entering order details for your suppliers and invoice details for your customers? No problem. Repetitive Mechanisms take the repetition out of your job and allow you to focus on the job and not the data. That makes ERP glamorous.

BizSlate: They’re Bringing Sexy Back … to ERP!

BizSlate, first introduced to you on SI back in September, 2012 in our post about an ERP for the Small to Mid-Size Distributor, and covered again last February when BizSlate Released its ERP for Mid-Sized Distributors and Retailers to the Masses, has decided that it’s time to bring sexy back to ERP.

BizSlate, who, like the doctor, noticed a void in useable and affordable modern ERP solutions for the mid-sized distributor, retailer, and manufacturer, decided that they needed to do something about it and built a new ERP from the ground-up, that is custom-designed to meet the need of the mid-market distributors, retailers, and manufacturers that are under-served, and released it last year. But working closely with their initial customer base, they noticed a few things that typical ERP and implementation providers overlook. Among other things, they noticed that:

  1. Traditional ERP is Ugly
    Black and Green screens are functional, but belong in the server room. There’s no reason that ERP can’t be functional and appealing.
  2. Traditional ERP is Cumbersome and Boring
    Does your new product line contain 20 pairs of footwear in 7 different sizes and a minimum of 2 colours each? And does each need its own SKU? Guess what, that’s at least 280 products you need to create one at a time! With all of the coding and cross-coding required, it’s probably 15 minutes a product, or 30 products a day, or two weeks of data entry for some poor intern just to create a starting product catalog! Talk about cumbersome and boring. High-tech is supposed to relieve your burden and excite you!
  3. Traditional ERP is Unsophisticated and Unglamorous
    Do you use third party agencies to sell your stuff? If you’re a mid-sized distributor or manufacturer or even a mid-sized retailer who focusses on the core business of distribution, production, or store-front retailing, you probably do (since sales, distribution management, and e-Commerce aren’t your forte). And you probably (want to) pay based on commission. But if you’re using an old fashioned ERP, you’re probably stuck with one simple commission plan, or, if you’re really lucky, one per third party agency. What if you need multi-tier? Or different rates based on category or component (since you want to push new product lines but don’t want to pay a lot for end-of-life products where inventory is being sold off at reduced rates)? Better luck next time. But what if you could manage commission plan by agency, by product line, and even by salesperson? And what if it was easy? That’s a level of sophistication that would make your life, and the life of Accounts Payable, easy! An ERP that solved this obvious need would be glamorous.
  4. Traditional ERP Works Off the Nineties Model of a Back Office System.
    The nineties were two decades ago. Traditional ERP hasn’t kept up with the trends and can’t support the modern sourcing, procurement, distribution, inventory, and order management needs of a modern organization that has to respond to customer inquiries and adapt to customer needs on the fly — not on a weekly reporting schedule. Given the critical nature of an ERP solution, it has to keep up with e-Business trends.
  5. Traditional ERP is Non-Disruptive
    The core functionality and process flow of ERP hasn’t changed much in the last twenty years. This is a problem because true innovation that brings true leaps in productivity and generated value comes from technology that is willing to take a risk and disrupt the status quo.

In other words, BizSlate realized that ERP was ugly, boring, unsophisticated, out-dated, and non-disruptive and that it shouldn’t be this way. So they’ve spent the last year streamlining and improving the core of the new ERP that they’ve built to make it appealing, exciting, glamorous, trendy, and just a little risqué. Because that’s what ERP should be. As per our last post, we have to remember:

ERP used to be sexy. It’s time to make it sexy again!

It’s Time to Bring Sexy Back to ERP!

ERP, Enterprise Resource Planning, used to be sexy. Designed as an extension of MRP (initially Material Requirements Planning but later Manufacturing Resource Planning), it was designed to automate the back-office functions that did not directly affect customers and the general public and also include product planning, manufacturing control, and distribution in addition to the basic inventory control and production planning capability that was found in the precursor MRP technology.

But that was in the early days back in the nineties when design, manufacturing planning, and distribution planning was still largely paper-based. Then came the noughts with e-business, e-commerce, CRM, SRM, and e-Sourcing. Then ERP became boring old back office software that no one wanted to talk about. If you could afford the new fangled front-end systems, you were a Fortune 500 / Global 3000, you already had ERP, and there wasn’t much to talk about.

But now things have changed. The prices for e-business, e-commerce, CRM, SRM, and e-Sourcing have come down, the mid-market is starting to become saturated with basic “e-” functionality, and the new mid-market manufacturers and distributors need an ERP to take those orders, send those invoices, and manage the inventory they need to produce to meet your JIT inventory requirements. But, until now, they’ve had two choices — either fork out high six-plus figures for a stripped down version of Oracle or SAP (and the expertise to get it installed and integrated) which likely won’t meet all of their needs, or a custom implementation of an open source package such as Compiere, which probably won’t meet all of their needs either (but at least won’t cost them the virtual arm and leg). And neither solution is sexy.

As per SI’s recent post on how Mid-Market Manufacturers and Distributors Need an ERP That Works!, the solution needs to support the needs of the mid-market manufacturer, distributor, and even retailer. These needs include the need to deal with electronic purchase orders from customers, real-time demand planning and order management when customers inquire about availability and ship dates, inventory management, electronic purchase orders to your suppliers, automated invoices from your suppliers, and automated invoices to your customers. Without an ERP that gives them these capabilities, mid-market manufactures and distributors are left in the dark ages.

But if an ERP is to truly be effective, it not only has to provide you with these capabilities, but it has to be easy to use, which would make it appealing, and eliminate a lot of the manual data processing and tactical processes that organizations with traditional ERP systems tend to drown in, which would make it exciting. And if you want to get the new ERP system widely adopted, it should be glamorous, trendy, and even a little bit risqué. And that is the very definition of sexy.

Will ERP be sexy again?

Mid-Market Manufacturers and Distributors Need an ERP That Works!

If you’re a mid-market manufacturer or distributor, times are tough.

Your big customers are adopting e-Procurement, Supplier Networks, and e-Invoicing and want to implement end-to-end Procurement and Invoice Automation to streamline processes and reduce operational costs.

Your component and raw material suppliers aren’t always on time, and if you are not on top of your inbound supply chain, a single missed delivery can put you weeks behind and cause you to lose critical orders with big customers.

And if demand suddenly surges or shipments get delayed, sales people and account managers need to know what can and can’t be promised or the company will look bad if multiple account managers collectively make delivery commitments beyond what the organization can deliver.

How do you meet these needs?

If you’re a mid-size organization, you probably can’t afford a full SAP, Oracle, or other Enterprise-class ERP solution with all of the bells and whistles because they come with a seven figure price tag, which leaves you with few choices. Either you choose a lesser ERP, with a price-tag in your price-range, or you go open source, and pay someone to configure and link it to your systems (as most open source never works “out-of-the-box”).

However, all you get with a basic ERP is basic enterprise resource planning functionality. There is no support for e-Invoicing and order automation, no support for advanced real-time forecasting and material planning, and no supply chain visibility.

As a result, in order to service your big customers, you have to either join a Supplier Network, and probably pay a fee for every invoice you send, or use the buyer’s e-Invoicing portal, and have your Accounts Receivable clerk create every invoice twice. After all, while there are lots of e-Procurement and Invoice Automation solutions for buyers, there’s few for distributors and manufacturers because e-order fulfillment systems just aren’t sexy.

In order to keep on top of your supply chain, you have to buy a separate inventory management system on top of a subscription to a real-time supply visibility system to get a grip on what you have, what’s coming in, and where your supply gaps are.

Then, because material planning is not real time and not integrated with order management, you need to buy a separate forecasting system. That’s even more dollars on top of the dollars that you need to spend for inventory management, order management, and the Supplier Network. If the organization could afford all that, the organization could afford the 7-figure ERP system that it couldn’t afford in the first-place.

That’s why mid-sized manufacturers and distributors need an ERP option that works. It has to be affordable, serve as the counterpart to buyer e-Procurement and invoice automation solutions, allow for visibility-based inventory management, provide full order management functionality, and allow for dynamically updated forecasts based upon changes in material availability, delivery dates, and buyer order forecasts.

It’s not sexy, but in order to have an efficient supply chain, all players in the supply chain have to be efficient. If solutions are produced for some players, but not others, the supply chain will continue to only be as strong as the weakest link.

Don’t Be a Smeghead! Adopt the 3 Rs Now Before You Yourself Become Scarce!

Starting today, your new mantra is Reuse, Recycle, Remanufacture and all of your sourcing efforts revolve around Design for Recycle because the raw materials your supply chain runs on are running out faster than oil and fresh water.

As per this recent article over on BBC Future on what is the world’s scarcest material, China, which produces up to 90% of the world’s rare earth metals that are vital in electronics production claims that its mines might run dry in just 15-20 year. At current utilization rates, we could be out of silver in 20 years (which is only good news if current lore is correct and you are a werewolf), platinum in 15 years (which is bad news for aspiring musicians everywhere), and indium, used in electroluminescent panels, LEDs, and semiconductors, in as little as 10 years!

Why? Because we don’t reuse, recycle, and remanufacture. Currently, US residents recycle a mere 25% of TVs and Computers and less than 10% of movie phones — which is where the majority of the rare earth metals mined every year end up! If we reclaimed all of the metals that went into all of the electronics we produced, it would likely be at least a century before we’d have to worry about running low on materials, as we’d only have to mine to meet incremental demand.

So if you think rare earth metals are expensive now, think about how expensive they are going to be as supply becomes even more restricted! Until SpaceX and Virgin Galactic have solved the everyday problems of space flight, merge to form Jupiter Mining Corporation, and build Red Dwarf, you’re going to have three choices:

  1. Completely switch product lines to something that doesn’t require rare earth metals — like fashion or low-tech household goods,
  2. Pay the ever increasing premium until your customers can’t absorb it and you go down with the corporate ship, or
  3. Spearhead a reuse, recycle, and remanufacturing effort with your customer and supply community to reclaim as many rare earth metals as you can and reduce your newly mined raw material requirements to the point where they can double in price and not affect your operating cost.

Obviously, choices #1 and #2 will both result in your position, and you, becoming a thing of the past — so unless you’re looking for a career change, only a Smeghead would choose anything but option #3.