Economic Outlook
Data from the Institute of Supply Management (ISM) suggest that growth may be returning to the manufacturing sector in Q3-09.

An August 3rd CNNMoney.com article, entitled "Manufacturing Index Signals Growth Soon," stated:

"Manufacturing activity rose significantly in July, suggesting that while the sector remains in contraction, there's a possibility of growth in the current quarter, a purchasing managers' group said Monday.

The Tempe, Ariz.-based Institute for Supply Management's (ISM) manufacturing index reading of 48.9 beat estimates from economists, who expected a jump to 46.5 from June's 44.8, according to a Briefing.com consensus survey. July's report marks the 18th straight month of contraction in the sector."

View the entire article here.

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Consona in China
As part of its acquisition strategy Consona inherited a presence in China, first through Cimnet Systems (acquired in 2005) and later through Intuitive® ERP (acquired in 2006). Cimnet Systems, a Consona ERP solution that focuses on the printed circuit board (PCB) market, had an established operation in China. Intuitive ERP had operated through three Value Added Resellers (VARs). In total, Consona has more than 100 customers in China.

After in-depth research into the Chinese market, Consona concluded that there was considerable opportunity for the corporation as more and more of its domestic-based customers were establishing operations in China, and this market would be best served through a direct sales and support operation. As a result, Consona acquired two of the Intuitive VARs. Today, Consona has four locations in China, Shanghai, and Shenzhen.

Recently, Bill Haynes, Consona ERP vice president of sales and marketing, and Milt Volosyn, Consona ERP vice president of professional services, returned from a trip to Consona's Chinese operations. "We see tremendous growth opportunities for Consona in China," said Haynes. "Even with the worldwide recession, China's economy is still expanding, and Consona is in a perfect position to take advantage of this growing market."

Haynes and Volosyn found an exciting and fast-paced environment. "We were very impressed with the Consona team," Haynes recalled. "They were very enthusiastic. We have a complete team in place, covering development, sales, marketing, service, and support. Our existing staff all have backgrounds in ERP, and our new hires have ERP experience."

Many companies have experienced considerable problems in establishing a presence in China. "There are always challenges, especially with communication and the distance from the U.S.," explained Volosyn. "But as we already had people in place and we kept the majority of the staff after the acquisitions, things were certainly easier than starting from scratch."

According to Haynes, Consona will focus on the strengths of Cimnet Systems in the PCB market and Intuitive with small discrete manufacturers—especially electronics. "With Consona's portfolio of products, there are plenty of opportunities to introduce more products into the Chinese market. But we won't introduce any products until they are fully localized, and we can offer services and support locally as well."

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Michigan Custom Machines
Since 1994, Michigan Custom Machines (MCM) has emerged as a world-class leader in the design and build of advanced custom test machines for automotive and industrial component manufacturers. With expertise in diesel fuel system component testing for end-of-line production, R&D, and endurance, MCM test solutions incorporate leading technology in hydraulics, electronics, 3D parametric design, controls, data acquisition, and assembly line integration.

Due to rapid growth and a record sales year in 2007, MCM was experiencing serious performance problems with its ERP system. MCM President Michael Schena explained some of the issues. "Our old ERP system was heavily modified to MCM's requirements. It was becoming slower and slower, and we discovered a lot of bugs. We had to do things in a certain order to avoid problems."

Schena realized that the business was potentially at risk with an unstable system. "Compounding our problems was the fact that the software supplier had dramatically downsized to just a handful of people. I was worried about the devastating effect it would have on our business if the system totally crashed and we couldn't get support. I decided to look for another system from a stable company."

As an engineer-to-order manufacturer, MCM recognized that a traditional ERP system would not meet their needs and, based on previous experience, a custom solution would not be considered.

"We design and build test equipment, and many times we are building these machines for the first time," said Schena. "The majority of ERP packages are based around making a product to a standard Bill of Materials. In our business, the BOM is the bible, but it's never complete until the project is complete. We're constantly changing the BOM all through the production process. We needed a system that could support that environment. Encompix met our requirements and had the flexibility to work the way we build a project."

MCM went live with Encompix® on April 1, 2009. "We really like the system," said Schena. "I have a lot more confidence in the information I receive from the system. The accuracy of the data and greater detail will help us control project costs. In addition, the lack of bugs is a refreshing change, and it's nice to get updates before we discover a problem."

Schena has noticed a big improvement in system performance. "With our previous system it could take several minutes to search an item in the Item Master. The system was that slow. The performance of Encompix and the Progress® database is excellent. We've saved a lot of time in that area alone."

Cardinal Scale
Headquartered in Webb City, Mo., Cardinal Scale Manufacturing Company markets a complete line of weighing products and systems, including truck and railroad track scales, medical scales, food service scales, floor scales, weight indicators, load cells, and vehicle weight management software. The company has warehouses in Canada and England and distributors in over 100 countries. Its products were recently featured on "How It’s Made," a popular series on the Science Channel.

Cardinal Scale was running a 20-year-old MRP system. "Over the years, we had created so many disparate systems to manage the business, residing in servers and workstations throughout the company. We wanted to consolidate under one system and move to current technology," said Larry Hicks, Cardinal Scale's vice president of operations.

In addition to 125 concurrent user licenses, Cardinal Scale purchased Consona ERP's full-service implementation methodology, where an expanded Consona implementation team performs the entire project management portion of the implementation process to guarantee success. “We wanted to ensure a smooth transition from our existing system to the Intuitive® ERP system by taking advantage of Consona's experienced consultants and developers," said Hicks.

Cardinal Scale went live on Intuitive ERP on January 5, 2009. The project included not only the base ERP product, but also Zetadocs, Intuitive Advanced Reporting, EDI Integration, and Intuitive Shop Floor Manager on 30 shop floor terminals.

The system was implemented at Cardinal Scales' three U.S. locations (Webb City, Atlanta, and Miami), and a warehouse operation in Ontario, Canada. In the near future, Cardinal Scale plans to implement the system into its United Kingdom operation and take advantage of Intuitive's extensive portfolio of products by implementing CRM, SPC, Web Portal, Executive Dashboard, and Shop Floor Data Collection components.

Even though Cardinal Scale has only been live on Intuitive ERP for just over six months, Hicks has already seen significant benefits. "Shop floor status reporting has improved dramatically. Previously, it took two days before shop floor data was available in the system. Today, the information is available instantaneously. Reliability is also a big factor. With our old MRP system, database errors caused significant downtime. With Intuitive ERP, we've not experienced any problems, and the accuracy and speed with which information is available has improved our decision-making."

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UCS, Inc.
Founded in 1967 as United Canvas and Sling, Inc., UCS, Inc., is a three-generation family business that continues to grow and evolve. Previously, the company manufactured custom awnings, boat covers, and other canvas products. Today, UCS is the world's foremost track-and-field equipment manufacturer and has been represented at four Olympic Games, U.S. Olympic Trials, and U.S. Track & Field national championships. The company is also the official equipment supplier to the NCAA Track & Field Championships. UCS's equipment is used by organizations in over 100 countries and by thousands of schools in the U.S.

About a year ago, UCS decided to look for a new integrated ERP system. "We had been using the same MRP software for the past nine years," said Zachary Schwartz, UCS e-commerce and technology manager. "However, when that software vendor was acquired, we noticed a drop off in support and a lack of upgrades." In addition, UCS had several other software systems that didn't work well together. "Our goal was to integrate all areas of our business around a single system."

In June 2009, UCS selected Intuitive ERP. "We chose Intuitive because it met all of our requirements, and its technology was ahead of its competitors," recalled Schwartz. "Based on our previous experience, the stability of the software company was of paramount importance. We felt very comfortable with the people we met from Intuitive, and the stability that Consona provides gave us confidence for the future."

In addition to the base Intuitive ERP system, UCS also purchased the CRM and Intuitive Executive Dashboard components. "The Executive Dashboard was another factor in our decision," said Schwartz. "We want to look at performance data visually rather than trying to interpret pages of printed reports."

UCS is just starting the implementation process and expects to be live on Intuitive ERP by the end of this year.

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Calculating Consulting Days
There are many factors that contribute to a successful ERP implementation. Selecting the right software system and getting commitment from top management are key factors. Ensuring that you have the right resources to support your implementation, though, is just as critical. So, how do you determine what is right for your company?

In this article, Marianne Chikos, Consona ERP director of consulting services, shares her thoughts on how to determine the number of consulting days your company needs to support an ERP implementation, including the factors that impact that number and the questions to ask your ERP software vendor.

Chikos joined Intuitive in 1998 and is based in the Kirkland, Wash. She manages the Intuitive implementation and technical consulting departments and is responsible for the development, training, and performance of the consulting staff. Chikos takes ownership of all Intuitive customers in their implementation phase, providing Consona management oversight into new customers' projects.

Consona has a wide range of ERP products, covering a variety of industries. Aren't the implementation consultancy requirements vastly different?
Regardless of which ERP system you implement, there is a similar process that every company must follow to reach live operations. In the mid-range ERP market, software alone has very little impact on the amount of consulting time you need. If you see a disparity in the quotes you receive from software vendors, you cannot automatically assume that one package is harder or easier to implement—it's more likely they are planning to provide different levels of service to your company.

How much time do you really need?
It varies from company to company. Typically, a software vendor provides a quote based on some tangible factors they know about your company, such as the number of licensed users, the specific software options selected, etc. However, there are a host of intangible factors that ultimately have more impact on how much consulting time you need. For example:

	Experience of players
	Complexity of your operation and production process
	Amount and quality of existing data
	Number of people working and committed to the project
	Amount of time they can dedicate to the project

How do you know if a vendor's proposal is right for you and your project?
First, assess your internal implementation team. Has anyone on your implementation team ever implemented ERP software before? How savvy is your team with planning concepts? Do you have an internal IT resource? Do you have strong internal financial resources? Does the project leader know your business well? How much time does the internal team have to spend on the project within the planned implementation timeframe?

Second, spend some time thinking about the scope of your implementation. How many modules do you plan to implement? How much legacy data do you have to import into the new system? Does the data need cleaning up before importing into the new system? For example, the project scope for a mature company using the full breadth of the system and years of legacy data will look very different from a startup doing light assembly.

Once your internal assessment is complete, gain an understanding of exactly what the vendor's quote covers. In particular, you need to determine:

	Who does the system set up—the consultant or internal resources?
	Who does the data extraction and import—the consultant or internal resources?
	How is education handled—for the implementation team and the end users?
	How much conference room piloting with a consultant does the plan allow for?
	How much time is allocated to support at go-live?
	Does the plan allocate time to post-live consulting activities, such as a first month-end closing visit?

If you have a good understanding of your internal resources, as well as the vendor's quote, you are in a much better position to make an assessment as to whether it's sufficient to meet your company's needs.

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