User Solutions: Affordable Agility with Tailor-Made ERP Solutions

Enterprises of all sizes are focused on maximizing their return on investments using a variety of business management tools. Enterprise Resource Planning software has already gained mainstream usage and is a must-have for the major players in any industry. However, most ERP users find varying levels of rigidity, complexity, and difficulty while implementing and using these one-size-fits-all ERP applications. Every organization has its own unique methods, especially in the area of Production Scheduling, that can’t be addressed by large ERP systems. According to Jim Convis, Vice President of User Solutions, “This is where we fit. We listen carefully to what the customer needs and deliver solutions that are affordable, easy to integrate with existing ERP Systems, quick to implement, and flexible to adapt to specific needs that involve resource planning, scheduling and tracking. Those resources can be any combination of people, materials, MRP, machines, tools, and workcenters.”

User Solutions serves as an ERP enabler to organizations with its broad range of solutions—Spreadsheet add-ons or templates (Excel), Windows database solutions, and cloud-based solutions. They are a perfect fit for customers still performing much of their planning and scheduling manually, using whiteboards, paper, and custom Excel sheets even though they might have a formal ERP system.

As an example of rapid return on customer investment, Convis illustrates the success story of GE Capital [NYSE:GE]— the financial subsidiary of General Electric. Serving the U.S. Rail Industry, with close to 200,000 railcars, at about $20 per day lease rate, the customer held an on-time delivery record of about 30 percent. “When they applied Workcenter Scheduler XL to plan, route, track, and schedule railcar repairs for their shops and sub-contractor shops, they were able to increase on-time delivery beyond 90 percent,” explains Convis.