Author: Vincent Bull in: Business Solutions
Many years ago, Art Church, the CEO of Mancor Industries, was facing a problem.
Even though business was growing at a steady pace, Art knew his manufacturing business, and its six plants throughout North America, could run much more efficiently if they stopped relying on tribal knowledge, and gut instinct.
For the longest time, manufacturing plants relied on the knowledge of key individuals to keep the machine running. But if someone left the company, or if their gut instinct was incorrect, the business suffered. And this affected every aspect of the plant.
From finances, to hiring, scheduling, shipping and receiving, inventory management – and everything in between. The ability to run a successful manufacturing plant was disproportionately relient on a select group of individuals within the organization.
While industrial manufacturing plants aren’t typically known for their progressive approach to change, Church had been researching Enterprise Resource Planning tools (ERP), and he knew a better solution was available.
Church, and his team at Mancor, began researching and reviewing the different ERP systems available in the marketplace for manufacturing businesses. These ERP systems promised unparalleled visibility, access, and feedback into every aspect of the plant.
As a starting point, Mancor began organizing their processes on a series of home grown spreadsheets. The intention was to create a process that would allow the operation to run more predictably, and efficiently. However, spreadsheets were unable to communicate effectively across the different divisions of the plant, and they did not provide the level of visibility needed to make true data driven decisions. So while it was a low cost alternative with minimal implementation time, it was not a long term solution.
Since the simple low cost option did not work. Mancor decided it was time to invest in a thorough ERP solution from a big name company.
So the new search began, and after reviewing the options, they chose to invest heavily in a vendor that promised to deliver everything that Mancor needed. While the cost was heavy and the implementation would take a great deal of time, Mancor believed they found their solution.
But shortly into their implementation period, Mancor could already foresee a series of problems with the big name ERP. The system was not specifically built with manufacturing in mind, so the program did not account for the unique challenges of running a large plant. There was no module for Capacity Planning, Easy EDI Integration, Nesting, Preventative Maintenance and more. Ultimately, the ERP system was designed by coders and software engineers that lacked the practical understanding of a manufacturing plant.
In the end, Mancor’s internal team was forced to build a series of add-ons to support the big name ERP. Spreadsheets were also still being used to fill the gaps. Church thought to himself that there must be a better solution available. So they went back to the drawing board.
But as Mancor continued to review the different ERP solutions, they continued to reach the same conclusion. As they assessed each of the ERP solutions available in the marketplace, none of them catered to the unique interests of a manufacturing business. With each program, they would be forced to bolt on modules, there would be islands of disparate data, the accounting was separate, tools were focused on data entry versus data analytics, and there was a limit on the amount of users – which resulted in increased fees on a ‘pay per user’ basis.
At the end of the day, the big name ERP systems were being used by a wide variety of different businesses in different industries. The solutions were generic, and were not specialized enough for manufacturing plants.
This is when Church, and the team at Mancor, came up with a new solution.
“We had over 50 years of experience in manufacturing, and at this point we had spent so much time building add-ons and new modules that we had the technical capabilities to build our own ERP program. Perhaps most importantly, we knew exactly what w/erp-software/ required from the ERP program for manufacturing plants – we knew how it should be,” Church said.
And so Mancor began the ambitious process of designing their own ERP that would cater to the very specific needs and interests of a manufacturing plant. In order to do so, Mancor relied on its people.
“We have up to 800 people in the plant working together. So we knew how a system should work, and we continued to test and refine the process with our staff,” Church said.
The Onramp Solutions ERP is loaded with built-in modules to support manufacturing businesses.
Onramp Solutions features state of the art Nesting Integration to work with CAD software to create a streamlined flow of information for laser cutting operations.
The Onramp ERP counts uptime and downtime of machines to predictably determine when maintenance is required.
After years of testing, building, and development, the Onramp Solutions ERP was developed as the best ERP for manufacturing. Onramp is built around the needs of the user, and it only contains modules that will be practical and helpful to a manufacturing business.
“We built it around driving out waste from the organization through automation. The implementation is specific to manufacturing, and when we build modules it is tested against the large input of our own manufacturing facility – so we know it works. Onramp Solutions also allows for unlimited users,’ Ian Church says, the Manager of Sales and Implementation.
Onramp Solutions was created by manufacturing, for manufacturing, and the system provides a variety of benefits that cater to the specific interests of the manufacturing industry:
Manufacturing businesses face a unique set of challenges that cannot be resolved with a standardized ERP program. They simply do not account for all the individual processes that take place in the day to day operations of a plant.
Mancor industries learned this first hand as they cycled through a variety of ERP programs over the years, and were forced to bolt add-ons to existing programs. After a great deal of trial and error, Onramp Solutions was developed as the industry leading ERP solution for every manufacturing business. Gone are the days of add-ons, spreadsheets, and using paper. The Onramp system provides manufacturing businesses with company-wide integration and unprecedented visibility.
The Onramp Solutions team of ERP experts are currently offering free demos. To book a consultation: Contact Onramp Solutions today!
For more information about how OnRamp ERP software can add value to your business fill in the contact form below. A member of our support team will contact you within 1 business day to discuss any questions you have.
Start the collaboration with us while figuring out the best solution based on your needs.
Our efforts began as an internal project of Mancor Industries when we identified the need for a more cohesive ERP system to manage the complexity of multiple plants, multiple products, multiple customers and multiple functions.
Read More
