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…
N/A
M1
Score 7.2 out of 10
N/A
M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.
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.
Implementation is by far the weakest link in the ECI/M1 process. Although the tool is powerful, the client is expected to drive the process of learning the tool, planning the meetings with consultants, identifying risks and making mitigation plans, etc. without any samples, guidance or assistance on the part of ECI. The tool is best suited to high volume, standard product manufacturers who build to inventory or to order without much variation. The shop floor routing and time tracking are straightforward if you can master the convoluted Unit Of Measure calculations. The tool is either hosted locally or accessed through Remote Desktop. Shop floor is web enabled but the main desktop for M1 is still a relay which makes connectivity a potential issue. Moving this platform to a truly web hosted environment would substantially improve connectivity and eliminate compatibility issues with Apple products
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.
Manage inventory counts. Good precision on quantities in and out, through shipping, MI, MR, and receipts.
Job costing shows great details on labor, operations, and materials to be used. I wished that would do better in outside operations that would return, but we still think it is great.
Ability to track changes (changelog), showing all changes that had in a particular place. Such as where, when, and by whom a line item unit price was changed in a PO.
Link, traceability, keeping history. If done correctly, it is amazing to keep the history of a part/lot.
The amount of user rights/customization is unbelievable. It can be hard to set up in the beginning, but it is great that you can give some very specific access to a user, and it is not (in general) as a package.
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.
Some of the functions are pretty detailed - and so they take a while to generate screens and pages in reports.
We actually use it for 2 companies we own - and it would be nice if the inter company communication was a little smoother. It's hard to share some data, and not everything is possible to be shared.
Customized reports need to backed up before any updates to M1 or they're lost. It seems M1 overwrites the report folders everytime you run an update - so you have to keep track of what you've changed in Crystal Reports and restore it.
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
Because it would be helpful if ECI would provide better documentation, communication and workflows to understand how each field interacts within the system and how each of those touch other areas within M1. It would also be useful if ECI would provide prescheduled training for how to customize things with M1 through Design Studio
Our customization requirements were not that high and based on a price/cost benefit M1 was the winner. SAP was considered but the upfront costs and challenging learning curve together with the lack of flexibility in the SAP HANA public cloud version made the M1 choice more natural. SAP Services is usually more expensive compared to M1.
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.
