Epicor Software Corporation, the business software solutions provider for manufacturing, distribution, retail and services organisations, has announced that DRB Group, an integrated mechanical and electrical engineering group specialising in mechanical, electrical and fluid power system manufacture and refurbishment, has selected the Epicor next-generation enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution to replace its 20-year old business systems.
DRB Group has over 160 staff, was established in 1976, and today has a turnover in excess of 10m (GBP). There will be 50 users working with the new Epicor solution from across all areas of the business to help improve productivity, customer service & support, as well as enable real-time reporting and decision making.
Having used the same technology system for over 20 years, one of the biggest challenges facing DRB Group is the restrictions that it has placed on the organisation's business processes, some of which have to take place offline "around the system", and use standalone spreadsheet aplications.
"Upgrading our complete ERP system to a modern architecture based on open standards, gives us a solution that can grow with the busines in the future," said Jason Armstrong, ERP project manger at DRB Group. "We can run all our business processes in Epicor and change them at a moment's notice. It gives complete visibility of our business and will make us more efficient."
DRB Group will be taking advantage of the industry best practice processes that come "out of the box" in Epicor for its vertical market. Over 25 years of experience on thousands of projects by Epicor's consultants, means these processes have been fine tuned to ensure the best in efficiency and industry recognised best practice, getting customers to go live faster. DRB Group will be able to create and adapt processes in-house to meet its specific needs, without touching the underlying Epicor codebase or needing programming experience, making it easier to apply upgrades as they become available.
Accuracy and timeliness of data will play a key role in the new solution, giving users information at their fingertips. Epicor's Enterprise Performance Management tools will allow users to directly customise dashboards to show real-time information in the format they personally need, as well as producing standard information for their role. Because the whole sales cycle from quote-to-cash will take place within Epicor, customers will get improved service from the moment a quote is requested, with accurate delivery times based on the DRB Group production schedule, current stock levels and supply chain information.
"Epicor Performance Management will eliminate the problem of reports that become out of date as soon as they are printed, resulting in saved time and effort on report preparation and allowing for more informed, accurate decision making," added Armstrong. "Our customer experience will also be improved by Epicor. The CRM system will allow us to proactively manage our relationships with customers."
DRB Group reviewed six ERP solutions before selecting Epicor. The project team stated that Epicor's ability to allow business processes to be easily adapted by the in-house team, as well as the customisable dashboards, were key in its selection.
"We can see a number of ways we can use Epicor after we have gone live with phase one, with features such as remote access and customer logins," concluded Armstrong. "It's use of open standards means that we can integrate it with plant equipment and be confident it will adapt with our business in the future, but remain at the heart of it."
"Getting information at the fingertips of our customers is key, its how they make the decisions that run their businesses," said Malcolm Fox, director, product marketing for Epicor. "Modern business intelligence feature have to allow customers to explore lines of enquiry and drill down into the information, no just present static, bland reports."
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