Global manufacturer Gilwood Fabricators selects Epicor

Epicor Software Corporation,  provider of enterprise business software solutions for the midmarket and divisions of Global 1000 companies, has announced that Gilwood Fabricators Ltd, a worldwide designer and manufacturer of bespoke stainless steel products including pressure vessels, scrubber and skid package units, has selected the Epicor 9 next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to run its core business unit functions including sales, manufacturing, finance and quality control.

With 38 staff across two sites, and a turnover of 2.7 million (GBP), Gilwood Fabricators will use Epicor to consolidate its systems into a single ERP implementation that will eliminate the disparate applications and data stores the company currently relies on.

"We have to do a lot of double-data entry to transfer information between applications or use complicated import/export procedures, which adds a big overhead to the business," said John Gilmartin, IT manager at Gilwood Fabricators. "It also slows us down and means there is a lot of margin for error. This is complicated even further by having no consistent way to audit data and its movement through applications."

Gilwood Fabricators looked at more than 10 ERP solutions before selecting Epicor, citing it as the stand-out system with all the cutting edge features needed, but at a price point much more competitive than the tier one ERP vendors. In particular the end-to-end service-oriented architecture (SOA) implementation in Epicor will enable the extraction and manipulation of data in XML format; a key requirement.

Gilwood Fabricators will also be making extensive use of Epicor to orchestrate its processes through the Business Process Management and Service Connect applications. This will allow the company to run real-time, event-driven workflow orchestrations, process automations, and application integration, without the need for additional programming.

"We were particularly impressed with the intuitive visual way Epicor allows you to create, edit and examine business processes and workflows throughout the application," added John Gilmartin. "This, along with the overall flexibility of the solution, meant that we knew Epicor was the right choice for Gilwood Fabricators and would grow and adapt with our needs."

"Epicor is a feature rich ERP solution, and we have always sought to ensure small and medium-sized businesses have access to the tools needed to be as efficient as possible in their markets," added James Norwood, senior vice president, worldwide product marketing at Epicor. "Our customers tell is what they want to see in Epicor and we are always working to extend the features available to them."