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In conjunction with our previous post about cheap ERP software, this post highlights cheap open source ERP software provider Openbravo. Openbravo has been named ‘Best of Open Source Enterprise Software’ by InfoWorld, and is an inexpensive alternative to traditional ERP solutions.

InfoWorld held their ‘Bossies’, Best of Open Source Software, awards recently to honor the best of the best in the open source world. Open source software is a hot topic in the tech world because it is a cost-effective and easily implemented solution.

Openbravo ERP, as praised by InfoWorld, “is a package that combines finance, sales, purchasing, and inventory modules. A free community edition and an extensive professional version are available through commercial license. Its plug-in architecture offers simple, template-driven setup and customization without the hard coding. The version 3.0 release candidate enhances navigation with quick-launch shortcuts and tabbed panels that allow users to view multiple grids simultaneously. New role-based portal pages and dashboards also contribute to the highly customizable experience.” InforWorld finished by saying that “getting started couldn’t be simpler, thanks to a newly streamlined setup process and preconfigured editions on Ubuntu Server and Amazon Cloud.”

The cheap ERP software provider has shown significant growth recently with the availability of the open source ERP solution Quickstart. Not only is Openbravo QuickStart an inexpensive option, it is also up and running on the fly. Openbravo has witnessed customer expansion in the form of over 1.7 million downloads. Openbravo open source ERP is in prime position for success, as the software industry has experienced a major demand for cheap and flexible ERP solution options.

Openbravo CTO, Paolo Juvara states: “It’s great to be recognized by InfoWorld yet again-it’s such an honor for us at Openbravo and our community. We’ve made it our mission to bring ERP to the masses, and in doing so have developed a product that strives to deliver a superior user experience by combining web-based simplicity with practical features. We want to transform open source ERP, and awards and recognition from respected sources such as InfoWorld fuel our ambition to continue delivering new and innovative solutions for each of our customers and our entire community.”

Technorati Tags: cheap erp, cheap erp software, open source, Open Source ERP, open source ERP software, openbravo, OpenBravo ERP

Cloud ERP vendor, Lawson, has launched a Disaster Recover service for Lawson customers that want coverage in the event of a technology-related disaster. Lawson Software is a global enterprise software provider whose software and services reach across 40 different countries. Lawson has launched Disaster Recovery for their ERP customers to help organizations resume business operations in the event of a tech-catastrophe. The new Lawson ERP Disaster Recovery is currently available to Lawson S3 customers with a Windows OS.

Disaster Recovery ERP was designed with the customer in mind, helping provide security for Lawson’s customers’ information. The delivery method for the Disaster Recovery technology is on demand, so Lawson customers can enjoy the flexible capacity of the ERP product. Lawson Data Recovery ERP will be able to pull customer data and restore software ERP functionality, giving businesses the ability to be back in operation in 12 hours or less.

“Currently, many organizations risk being down for days and losing significant amounts of data in the event of a disaster, and that can be devastating to their business. Our customers have asked for a reliable cost effective business continuity solution when it comes to their most time-sensitive business processes,” said Lawson VP, Terry Plath. “By taking advantage of the flexible capacity and rapid scalability of the Cloud, we can quickly restore the customers’ instance of the software along with their production data to minimize down time. This helps minimize the time it takes to get them back on track with their core business processes. Ultimately, this provides greater peace of mind when lost minutes and hours can make a tremendous impact on their business.”

Scott County Minnesota, a Lawson customer, has implemented cloud Lawson Disaster Recovery. With the help of Lawson ERP, the country has improved their recovery time by 36 hours. The cloud ERP provider and county administrators worked closely during the implementation process to ensure that industry best practices were being used. Lawson also helped the county test recovery time once the implementation phase was over.

“Our constituents, including county employees, need confidence that we can confidence that we can continue our business operations in the event of a disaster,” said CFO of Scott County, Kevin Ellsworth. “Our testing of Lawson Disaster Recovery has shown a significant reduction in the amount of time it can take us to restore many of our core significant reduction in the amount of time it can take us to restore many of our core business processes. We need to be able to make payroll, manage our financials and ensure that we have supplies needed to run efficiently. Extended downtime can cause considerable disruption in our services to residents of the county and our employees, which is not acceptable.”

The company hinted at creating disaster recovery software in early April and has since then made the software available for its S3 customers. “This product introduction underscores the fact that some of the best innovation in enterprise software comes from the collaboration we have with our customers,” said Plath. “By listening to their needs and working closely with them on innovative ideas, we’re able to deliver new products and services that address issues that directly affect their business. Now with Cloud computing as a reality in enterprise software we’re able to bring even greater innovation and speed to market with new products and services.”

Technorati Tags: Cloud ERP, ERP, lawson disaster recovery, lawson erp, lawson erp disaster recovery

ERP selection for large corporations is typical because of their presence in different countries with different laws, languages, business culture, market trends, customer taste and currency. Apart from these scalability and adaptability of the ERP is also of utmost importance for future requirements and problems.

Microsoft has been working on ‘project green’ which is to unify all four ERP solutions into one to give a powerful solution to its users because there are serious overlapping of features and functions in the four Microsoft ERP solutions which does not justify their separate presence in the market. As far as Microsoft dynamics SL is concerned, it is more suitable for project based companies rather than manufacturing or large distribution enterprises. To identify the most suitable option for any large enterprise out of the other three ERP solutions of Microsoft, it is important to consider the criteria companies follow to choose an ERP solution.

Customization of the available ERP is important to fit in the exact requirements of the user, Microsoft Navision, Axapta or Great plains can be customized with ease but customization of GP is the easiest of them. Great plains is considered as easiest to setup and launch in comparison to Navision and Axapta. Navision requires mid-size customization while Axapta has longer implementation cycle. With the MS SQL server at back end both Navision and GP, are capable of giving more integration and reporting options with crystal reports. Being an SQL based ERP both of these can be integrated with Unix, Linux or Oracle comfortably.

While doing ERP selection for large corporation one of the primary requirements is the capability of the ERP to work in multi-company, multi-division and multi-currency environment. These procedures shall be added on, as and when required, and with out any restrictions, Navision, Axapta and Great plains provide such working environment. In terms of flexibility all the three ERP solutions of Microsoft are at par, though Great plains has more options as add on, which gives it more flexibility to adjust according to the user requirements and also makes it cost effective.

User friendliness and internet integration are other criteria used by the large enterprises for ERP selection. Today almost every ERP provide internet integration for e-commerce, web portals and e-business facilities including Axapta, Navision and Great plains. All the Microsoft ERP solutions are user friendly and can be handled easily even by the staff of the company having minimum IT skills. Role tailored of role center screens of Axapta has been its highlight which gives a customized screen for better and quick understanding and feeding of data by removing irrelevant grids and information.

Over all out of the three Microsoft dynamics ERP solutions, Great Plains with its 10 years of presence, its flexible features, quick implementation, cost effectiveness, internet integration and integration with MS office and other Microsoft products, appears to be the most suitable ERP solution for large enterprises. Though recently there has been a surge in the installations of Axapta but it is still a relatively new ERP compared to Navision and Great plains.

Technorati Tags: Axapta, ERP large businesses, Great Plains, Microsoft Navision

Epicor’s retail management software is an all in one solution for retail stores nationwide.  Epicor has been proudly serving business in providing the most up to date technological business solutions.  Epicor’s Retail Enterprise, retail management, software is a great example of a product that is sophisticated and easy to use.

Epicor’s Retail Enterprise Selling features include:

-Real Time Inventory Tracker
-Cross Channel Order Manager
-Customer Relationship Management
-Operations Management
-Point of Sale System
-E-Commerce Support
-Sourcing and Product Lifecycle Management
-Planning and Assortment Planning
-Business Intelligence
-Merchandising
-Audit Management
-Financial Management

The system developed by Epicor allows retail locations to set up a system for one location, or link the systems for multiple retail outlets.  Managing your own e-commerce site is easy and allows for synergy between your brick and mortar location and your internet location.  Inventory management is essential in all aspects of a retail location.  With software from Epicore, inventory is managed in real time so you have the most up to date inventory information.

Technorati Tags: Epicor, ERP, POS, retail, retail management software, retail merchandising, retail solutions

Technorati Tags: PLM, product lifecycle management, SAP PLM, SAP PLM application, SAP PLM software, SAP product lifecycle management software

Oracle released Agile PLM 9.3 SP2 on June 14 and the Agile installer for AutoVue 20 for Agile PLM on April 30. Also available are the new versions of AUT and Averify – 1.6.3 for both tools.

So what’s new?

9.3 SP2 is a combined English and NLS release for use on any version of 9.3.0. SP2 contains many bug fixes and rolls up several Hot Fixes.  Additionally, this release also addresses some scalability issues when working with very large Exports and Reports. When exporting very large BOMs, the export module will now release objects more efficiently to reduce the amount of memory consumed on the Application Server. Adminstrators can also control the maximum row limits for Users verses system processes, like ACS. Several out of the box BOM reports have also been changed to use a new row limit option. The combination of all these changes will provide more stability on the application server for customers managing very large datasets. 9.3 SP2 also adds support for Oracle Database 11gR2 for Windows, Oracle Internet Directory (OID) and Oracle Access Manager (OAM).

However, according to the site customers running the Variant Patch should remain on 9.3.0.0 or 9.3.0.1.

Back in April, the AutoVue 20 for Agile PLM installer was also released. AutoVue 20 has many new features which will help Agile PLM customers. Large multi-page Word documents and 2D CAD documents will open more quickly to the first page or first rendition. Memory usage is less when working with 3D Models. There are many new formats supported for MCAD, 2D Cad, and EDA. AutoVue 20 is immediately available for Windows and Linux platforms.

Here’s what we gathered:

The new software can be found in Edelivery or Metalink / Oracle Support:
- AutoVue 20 for Agile PLM is on E-Delivery with part number B58963-01
- Oracle Agile PLM 9.3 Service Pack 2 (9.3.0.2) My Oracle Support Patch ID 9782736
- AVERIFY 1.6.3 My Oracle Support Patch ID 9791892
- AUT 1.6.3 My Oracle Support Patch ID 9791908
- Agile PLM 9.3 SP2 Documentation is available on the OTN Agile Documentation Page

Technorati Tags: Agile PLM downloads, Agile PLM service pack 2, Oracle Agile PLM

Infor Visual, Microsoft Dynamics AX and Epicor 9 are great ERP software solutions for manufacturing companies. These three ERP software solutions also provide options and functions for distribution and can be utilized by manufacturing companies for managing their warehouse more efficiently and also as a solution for wholesale distribution companies.

Infor Visual comes with complete solutions for CRM providing facilities for quoting and estimating, custom pricing and commissions, sales forecasting and e business and web store front. Dynamics AX and Epicor 9 also provide CRM function where business relations with customers, vendors and leads are maintained and contacted.

These three ERP software solutions are more geared towards manufacturing companies so there an option encompasses all the aspects of production planning, execution and manufacturing control functions. Infor Visual ERP solution provide options for MRP- materials requirement planning, advanced material planning, shop floor controls, quality management, BOM, production scheduling and lean manufacturing. Shop floor controls are available in extended core of Dynamics AX, it also provide options for master planning where purchase and production planning is done, inventory management and production where BOM is defined and every step of manufacturing is tracked down. Epicor 9 manufacturing module contains real time production management, rule based product configuration, product life cycle management, advanced planning and scheduling and support for lean manufacturing. Infor Visual, Dynamics AX and Epicor 9 ERP software solutions provide complete solution for manufacturing and give necessary control to the management to keep a track of every step and avoid redundancy.

Another feature incorporated into these ERP solutions is distribution for better management of finished products, raw material, multi-dimensional inventory and shipping and receiving. Infor Visual uses a radio frequency enabled warehouse system; and Dynamics AX provides features for supply chain management through accounts receivables, inventory management and accounts payable with warehouse facility. Epicor 9’s supply chain management features include planning and scheduling, product data management and production management.

With all these features, it’s easy to see why Infor Visual, Microsoft Dynamics AX and Epicor 9 are highly regarded when it comes to manufacturing ERP software solutions.

Technorati Tags: Epicor 9, Infor ERP software, Manufacturing ERP, manufacturing ERP software, microsoft dynamics AX

HCL AXON, a business solutions provider, is now an SAP-endorsed. SAP, an ERP software vendor, has made the decision to support iMRO because the company delivers value to SAP. iMRO is an SAP add-on for SAP’s ERP application. The iMRO add-on helps reduce cost and optimizes efficiency for airlines, manufacturers, and third party MRO providers. iMRO helps users with maintenance engineering, maintenance planning, maintenance operations and business support processes.

iMRO’s SAP add-onwill be complementary to SAP software offerings and are developed following SAP’s development guidelines and give SAP software users additional flexibility with SAP applications. Moving forward, SAP and iMRO will share their product roadmaps and technology.

“Now that iMRO is an SAP-endorsed business solution, we can respond quickly to the needs of the marketplace, collaborate with SAP on future solution functionality, and offer a wide range of flexibility and value to our customers,” said Ian Greenhalgh, HCL AXON’s VP. “We look forward to delivering innovative solutions to our joint airline and aerospace and defense customers, enabling them to achieve significant business benefits.”

HCL and SAP had collaborated in 2008 to create technology for the aerospace market. The result of the collaboration was iMRO for aviation, aerospace, transport and defense MRO organizations that plan to implement SAP’s ERP software.

“By endorsing solutions such as iMRO, SAP continues to build its ecosystem, support our customers’ businesses, drive new levels of collaboration, and provide additional choices and flexibility to our customers,’ said SAP executive, Phil Te Hau. “The use of iMRO with SAP ERP has already proven to be a powerful combination that reduces costs associated with maintenance while improving asset utilization for the airline and MRO industries.”

Technorati Tags: aerospace ERP, ERP, HCL AXON, HCL AXON’s iMRO, iMRO, SAP add-on, SAP ERP

Plex Systems announced today that they will be hosting live demonstrations of Plex Online’s comprehensive ERP solution for Motor Vehicle Suppliers and Manufacturers on Tuesday June 8, 2010 from 2-3 p.m. ET and Medical Device Manufacturers on Tuesday, June 22, 2010 from 2-3 p.m. ET.

The demonstrations will showcase how implementing an industry-leading ERP system helps manufacturers run leaner operations while seamlessly linking the complete enterprise. The result is better quality management, maximized productivity and increased profitability.

These industry-specific events offer manufacturers an opportunity to explore Plex Online as they would use it in their day-to-day operations. Participants will see first-hand how Plex Online can track lot properties while optimizing and improving mission-critical business processes such as batch production, end-to-end inventory control and traceability, quality assurance, FMEA, regulatory reporting, trading partner mandates and EDI, tooling management, and OEE tracking and trend analysis. Each webinar is tailored to the particular industry audience and will highglight additional features unique to the motor vehicle and medical device manufacturing communities.

This would be a great opportunity to understand and learn about the workings of this manufacturing ERP software.

Motor vehicle suppliers and manufacturers may register here.

Medical device manufacturers may register here.

Technorati Tags: Manufacturing ERP, manufacturing ERP software, medical device manufacturing erp, motor vehicle supplier erp software, Plex Online, Plex Systems

When it comes to ERP, you name it; we’ve probably written about it. In fact, there are countless articles about ERP software, ERP vendors and ERP case-studies everywhere you look. However, not everyone knows what ERP actually is. In the IT world, there are more acronyms than explanations. Here at Blog ERP, we wanted to give you a simple answer to the often asked question “What is ERP?”

ERP stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. The business of ERP is to manage business practices and technology. There are three main components that make up ERP, besides the letters ‘E’, ‘R’ and ‘P’: Business Management Practices, Information Technology (IT) and Specific Business Objectives.

Simply put ERP software helps businesses automate, manage and store every conceivable business process and bit of information, in one database. ERP systems are massive software architecture that supports the collection, streaming and distribution of business-wide information across all departments. Companies can use one ERP solution with company branches across continents, with the right ERP deployment options.

ERP solutions are designed to be centralized data banks that acquire and supply information into and out of a universal computing platform.

Information is difficult to organize and manage in multi-employee businesses. Usually information management and storage is only made possible with several servers and business software solutions. Implementing an ERP solution will help companies enhance performance, speed and competence with only one software solution.

ERP software can help facilitate the management of enterprise wide functions such as: Human Resources, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Finance, Manufacturing Warehouse Management and Logistics. Instead of choosing several standalone software solutions, businesses can cover all their bases with an ERP solution.

In order for a system to be considered ERP, it must give users a business-wide collection of functionalities with features like flexibility, modularity and global focus.

Integration is another key feature of an ERP System. The objective of an ERP system is to integrate information and processes across multiple business divisions and merge it into one system for easy access and simplified workflow.

ERP solutions are designed to optimize efficiency, speed and productivity. Life before ERP solutions consisted of isolated software for each department in a company. Using isolated framework prevented companies from synchronizing information and hampered productivity and speed. Having one integrated ERP system with cross-departmental capabilities would give users access to all information in one instance, standardized information exchange formats, access to a complete overview of the enterprise functioning, global decision optimization and time-saving solutions.

Technorati Tags: ERP, ERP definition, ERP Solution, ERP System, ERP Vendor, What is ERP?