IFS Applications 8.

Advantages
 

ONE PRODUCT
IFS Applications is a single, integrated product supporting the management of 4 core processes; Service
and Asset, Manufacturing, Project, and Supply Chain. Combined with our deep industry knowledge and
horizontal solutions such as financials, HR, CRM etc., it is a complete ERP solution for all your business
needs.

USER PRODUCTIVITY
IFS Applications provides an attractive, intuitive and efficient user experience, helping you easily find what
you need to do your job. So you can spend less time managing your software and more time managing
your business.

COMPONENT-BASED SOA
IFS Applications is built using the same principles as successful manufacturers—the production and
assembly of components. Thanks to our service-oriented component architecture you can choose only the
business components you need. And add new ones as you go along.

BUILT FOR CHANGE

With IFS Applications you stay agile, ready for change and evolution without disrupting the implemented
solution. Our strategy of building for change includes a number of best practices, including a commitment
to standard technologies and well-known products.

Global Shop Solutions ERP manufacturing software is the only provider of One-System ERP Solutions™. Our ERP software
has helped thousands of discrete manufacturers streamline their operations, increase sales, improve quality and on-time
delivery, and lower costs. Global Shop Solutions ERP software is tailored to manufactures that are Make-to-Order (MTO),
Make-to-Stock (MTS), Assemble-to-order (ATO), Assemble-to-Stock (ATS), Engineer-to-order (ETO), Mixed-mode, as well
as companies that just do assembly or repair work. Global Shop Solutions is considered a Tier 2 / Tier 3 ERP
manufacturing software application with a focus on the small to mid market.

Global Shop Solutions’ unique combination of manufacturing knowledge, ERP software expertise and commitment to
customer service has produced more successful implementations than any of its competitors in the industry. For
manufacturing companies looking to be more lean and that want to provide better and faster service to their customers,
gain more control over their business and accelerate growth and profitability, Global Shop Solutions is the ERP
manufacturing software of choice.

IFS

Advantages: IFS Applications support many to many relationships between Engineering Change Requests and
Engineering Change Orders. Its applications also easily handle stockable and non-stockable phantom
subassemblies. Customer account creation is very user friendly. Passing Kanban inventory from any location to
any other location is very simple. Sales order and product profitability analyses are done through pre-built
scorecards that run off of sophisticated queries that eliminate the need to populate OLAP cubes.

Disadvantages: Identification of components with long purchase lead times at an early design stage and for
early planning purposes is poor.

Overall: Online help is very useful. Email routing help is very sophisticated. Screen navigation is intuitive
because users only have to learn five different screen forms in order to use the entire application suite.
Document Management tool is fairly sophisticated. IFS' workflow tool is visual and powerful. Its Web portal
tool, which consists of a number of configurable portlets, is very intuitive. IFS also provides native Product
Data Management (PDM), Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Advanced Planning and Scheduling
(APS).

J.D. Edwards

Advantages: Online Expense reports and procurement cards are highly integrated with the General Ledger. JD
Edwards' back-flush capabilities are also very strong. The ability to report deviations from Bill of Materials in
production is very sophisticated
Disadvantages: Distinguishing between internal and external comments on Purchase Orders and Purchase
Requisitions is poor. Identification of components with long purchase lead times at an early design stage and for
early planning purposes is poor. Adherence to certain industry specific messaging standards is not supported out
of the box and requires an XML mapping exercise.

Overall: JD Edwards' integration with Microsoft Office is very sophisticated. The company has also partnered
with Siebel for Customer Relationship Management and Microstrategy for Business Intelligence such that JD
Edwards directly provides support to its customers. This brings exceptional functionality in these areas while
mitigating some of the traditional problems of using a multi-vendor solution.

Oracle

Advantages: Procurement cards are highly integrated with the General Ledger. Design-to-Order and
Manufacture-to-Order cost and schedule information is very useful. Repair action recording and sales
forecasting are also strong.

Disadvantages: Online Expense reports were cumbersome and not user friendly. Identification of components
without suppliers was difficult. Oracle has no out of the box dashboard or scorecard functionality. Use of a
shipper's memo to drive stock transactions is poor. The ability to accumulate labor against a work order was
limited. Many industry specific forms are not available out of the box.

Overall: Oracle has very tight integration between its application modules and its database. In general,
functionality in financials and manufacturing is very strong.

SAP

Advantages: Document Management tools can handle sophisticated importing of Engineering Bill of Materials
that are made up of multiple engineering documents. The ability to view and move Kanban locations is very
powerful and visual. Tight integration with FEDEX enables automatic generation of FEDEX tracking numbers.

Disadvantages: Out of the box scorecard and dashboard functionality is very limited.

Overall: SAP is more functionally robust than any other vendor. The company has native PDM, CRM and
APS.

http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/article/ERP-Selection-Facts-and-Figures-Case-Study-Part-2-Qualitative-
Assessments-and-Analysis.html

https://www.linkedin.com/company/global-shop-solutions?trk=top_nav_home

Microsoft Dynamics AX (formerly Axapta)

Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 R3 (formerly Axapta) is a comprehensive enterprise resource planning (ERP)

software solution for larger, enterprise organizations that empowers businesses to operate effectively, adapt and
grow easily, and compete globally.

The high degree of scalability within Microsoft Dynamics AX offers multi-site and multi-country businesses an
integrated solution that improves productivity and business efficiencies, across multiple regions, languages and
currencies. This solution matches industry specific capabilities with the latest Microsoft technologies to provide
efficient business solutions.

When combined with the experience and product expertize of UXC Eclipse - there are even more reasons to
implement this leading ERP solution.

http://www.uxceclipse.com/microsoftdynamicsax/Pages/home.aspx

ECi M1 is a complete enterprise resource planning (ERP) system that provides total automation of financials,
inventory, production, sales/quoting, and production planning. The software is designed for small to midsized
firms who manufacture via repetitive, make-to-stock, make-to-order, engineer-to-order processes.

M1 is fairly unique among its competitors by offering its MRP module on a best-of-breed basis. As a result, we
see M1 being a very suitable option for companies looking to grow into an ERP system and distribute their
costs over time. The system also offers features for inventory barcoding, shop floor control, and customizable
reporting with Crystal Reports.
ECi offers a few other unique aspects that buyers don’t see from most ERP vendors. Those key differentiators
include free “view only” licenses for buyers who just need to view and edit reports, (often saving buyers
thousands in concurrent licensing fees), “Smart Screen Technology” that automatically changes screens based
on users’ input, and a free M1 Design Studio that allows users to customize the system without accessing the
source code or requiring extensive programming knowledge.  

We have heard very positive reviews of the ECi staff and their implementation processes. ECi sells and supports
software directly, not relying on dealers and value-added resellers. We often see vendors with direct sales
maintaining tight control over system sales and implementation. ECi currently supports over 800 customers and
we expect them to maintain their forward momentum.

http://www.softwareadvice.com/erp/eci-m1-profile/

Intacct is a Web-based financial accounting software system with a broad set of functionality for small to mid-
sized businesses. Founded in 1999 in San Jose, California, Intacct now serves over 30,000 users. The system is
meant for a wide variety of industries as a horizontal accounting system.

Intacct can support applications for core accounting, time and expenses, revenue management, project
accounting, order and billing, purchasing, global consolidations, multi-currency management, and financial
reporting.

Intacct is web-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and can be accessed on demand through a browser over the
Internet. Oracle is the database for Intacct, while the applications and data are hosted in IBM e-business Hosting
Centers. Disaster recovery functions are provided by Sungard.

http://www.softwareadvice.com/erp/intacct-accounting-profile/?layout=var_w0

Microsoft Dynamics AX Strengths and Weaknesses

Competitive positioning in the ERP software market is highlighted with the following strengths and
weaknesses.

Dynamics AX Strengths

Dynamics AX 2012 is a dramatic improvement from AX 2009, and features over 1,000 enhancements. Some of
the ERP solution's competitive strengths are as follows:

 Multilayered architecture offers business agility to cater to rapidly changing business requirements
 A true mixed-mode ERP solution, offering both discrete- and process-based manufacturing functionality
 Leverage of industry best practices and vertical-market processes through the business process library
(BPL)
 Seamless Microsoft Office integration with Excel, Word, Outlook, and Dynamics CRM, often with one
click
 An enterprise portal that promotes both internal and external collaboration, as companies can share
information upstream and downstream to streamline production and delivery
 A suite of complimentary tools including the Management Reporter, dashboards, balanced scorecards,
data warehousing and OLAP collectively deliver a powerful business intelligence solution
 Role-based configuration allows dashboard creation for specific user functions, such as Kanban
scheduling visualization, workflows, dataflows, and task lists, whether using the Windows Client or a
web browser
 A very strong and integrated CRM solution
 Good global ERP support, with multi-currency and multi-language capabilities
 An extremely strong global partner network and third party software marketplace
 Simple upgrade from Dynamics AX 4.0 and AX 2009 directly to AX 2012
 A overall top competitor in the midrange ERP software market, and a possible tier-one competitor
against SAP Business Suite and Oracle in select medium- and large-size enterprises

Dynamics AX Weaknesses

Strategic ERP weaknesses include the following:

 Software as a Service and cloud ERP options are still limited, and don't compete favorably with pure-
play cloud ERP solutions
 Dynamics AX incurs higher costs and risks associated with partner hosting, due to reduced investments,
competencies and resourcing as compared to publisher hosted SaaS ERP solutions
  The user interface (UI) is satisfactory, but fails to take advantage of the lessons learned from consumer
technologies and does not deliver a rewarding user experience
 Microsoft is extremely behind in recognizing and delivering Enterprise 2.0 and social business solutions
 Dynamics ERP offers very limited cross-platform support—including narrow support for browsers,
operating systems and databases
 Dynamics AX is no longer well suited to smaller companies, but rather more for midrange and
enterprise-level organizations
 Despite Microsoft's company strategy of aligning along industry markets, Dynamics ERP systems
seldom venture into verticals markets. Instead the company relies on its ISV and business partner
channels to develop and integrate industry solutions. The strategy is not unreasonable, however, creates
a layer of abstraction between the publishers and its customers.
 The lack of some modules and the fact that some functionalities are provided by partners and third
parties can create integration complexity, drive up total cost of ownership (TCO) and impact return on
investment (ROI)

- See more at: http://www.erpsearch.com/dynamics-ax-strengths.php#sthash.5D6BxtOU.dpuf

http://www.erpsearch.com/dynamics-ax-strengths.php

http://www.softwareadvice.com/erp/