Global Shop Solutions ERP software provides applications used to deliver quality parts on time, from quote to cash and everything in between including shop management, scheduling, inventory, accounting, quality control, and CRM. Available in the cloud or on premise, the solution aims to give its manufacturing customers real-time inventory accuracy, improved on-time delivery, lower administrative costs, increased sales and improved customer service. Headquarters in The Woodlands, Texas includes…
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Infor VISUAL
Score 8.0 out of 10
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Infor VISUAL is an ERP software focused on manufacturing companies with business intelligence, planning and scheduling, and pricing, quoting, and estimating capabilities, among others.
We need an all-in-one ERP system, and it suits basic needs. If you are looking to utilize reporting or utilize the CRM you will have to learn to format the information you are able to pull to make it manageable and easier to read. This ERP uses a Crystal Reports system that needs to be converted into Excel or another software program to sort and identify anything. There are a lot of advantages and I am sure the issues we are having are because of how our staff is using this system or has set up this system for our needs.
The original version of Visual Manufacturing (Lilly Software) was intended for mechanical manufacturing. It was adapted at our facility (we were not the first) to accomodate electronic manufacturing. For electronic manufacturing process control it is not ideal when referencing in-line or custom processes used to build product. For material control it is excellent unless a modification to a standard product is required (and we did this on 60% of product going out the door). The co-product feature that removes material from an assembly requires the creator of the work order to calculate the percentage of cost the removed items are from the completed product. On the business operations side regional tax reports were difficult to extract and an external module to go into the data base and extract that had to be created. The system itself was stable for the most part. Occasional "data collisions" corrupted transactions at times. The accounting procedures in place found them by the end of the month .where they were corrected. For a small business with less formal processes Infor Visual can be used with little training for the operators. If the processes need a higher level of accountability and control the processes can be formalized with workflow scripts to ensure that higher level of control.
The CRM has really advanced and allows us to track the efforts of our sales staff, as well as identify trends. We are heavily using this system to track our sales team's progress and utilize the events, opportunities and to-do tasks as well as identifying the customer history all in one spot.
Supply and Demand section is used by pretty much everyone. This allows us to identify what is on-hand and the history of the parts' use. It is easy to follow and make changes.
Order Entry allows us to track all orders in an easy fashion. This is very straightforward and simple to use.
You are unable to match a debit and a credit on a customer or vendor account to remove it from the open ledger.
Reports (and some processes) tend to change with little notification.
Many of the company options are not "common sense." What you think they would mean, actually do something very different. This makes it difficult to get your settings correct without ample research and testing.
At times a "shadow part" is necessary in the manufacturing process. This shadow part does not require an inventory transaction but is made a as a separate process - sometimes out of sequence to the general process flow. Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 does not have that capability.
When generating forms for business and manufacturing operations Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 has a limited number of options. To change or add forms requires an unsupported editor. When the stock and custom options are depleted an outside programming module is required as well as programmers to develop the forms.
While free software upgrades to the main operations modules have been part of the maintenance agreement. One upgrade required database and hardware support not justifiable for the current business model. The system was frozen at the current version at that time.
There is no easy way to differentiate between engineering documentation and production documentation.
Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.
It standardizes our processes, it helps keep things moving financially, as stated previously the asset tracking and inventory functions alone are priceless. This has really been a fantastic tool and helpful across the board with both our accounting, IT and even helping leadership with planning, forecasts, and budgetary matters. You can literally tailor this to your needs, and it's reliable, easy to understand and logical even with their back end tables. Their software is a class act
Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.
We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.
The ROI on this software is incredible, I seldom gush but I genuinely cannot see any industry where this wouldn't be applicable and useful.
The forecasting alone is worth the price of admission
We love the simplicity and elegance of handling our IT inventory
About the closest thing to a complaint would be sometimes the updates can be a little fiddly with specific dot.net requirements but they're great about supporting even aging hardware and OS's.
