American manufacturers need to stay current if they wish to remain successful. Positioning yourself for growth means looking to the future and gaining efficiencies through new technologies. That’s why this question may be the most important one for your business— are you a future-ready manufacturer?

Before you can adequately answer that question, you and the members of your organization need to know the answers to these three questions.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


American manufacturers need to stay current if they wish to remain successful. Positioning yourself for growth means looking to the future and gaining efficiencies through new technologies. That’s why this question may be the most important one for your business— are you a future-ready manufacturer?

Before you can adequately answer that question, you and the members of your organization need to know the answers to these three questions

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a new legal framework that will take effect on May 25, 2018. The purpose of the GDPR is to protect the privacy rights of individuals, and it will bring into effect strict global privacy requirements that will govern how organizations manage and protect personal data—regardless of where data is sent, stored, or processed.

The GDPR is a major change that affects how data relating to an individual should be handled and may impact every department across many businesses worldwide. It will not only affect companies, but also any individual, authority, agency, corporation, or other entity that processes the personal data of individuals based in the European Union. For a company, this may include any suppliers and other third parties that may process personal data.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


As the manufacturing sector is poised to enter a new era—with additive manufacturing, cluster manufacturing, and near-shoring—and as digitization of the shop floor is creating new connections and new data streams, the need for responsiveness is more critical than ever.

Organizations must turn the explosion of data they have into intelligence and insights to support real-time decision-making, at every level and across every function in the organization, and the extended supply chain. But over time, the ERP system—originally intended to automate and integrate business activities for improved productivity—starts becoming a real drag dragging down operational performance.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


The role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in managing business processes has expanded significantly over the past decade from a focus on specific business areas such as manufacturing, procurement, or human resources, to broader use throughout the company. Although IT has traditionally been responsible for specifying and implementing technology within an organization, successful ERP implementations require involvement from stakeholders at all levels, from executives to end users. For many companies, the transition from existing traditional systems to a new ERP one can consume significant corporate resources, including time, expense, and risk to business operations. However, as we’ll explore below, this need not be the case.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


The role of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems in managing business processes has expanded significantly over the past decade from a focus on specific business areas such as manufacturing, procurement, or human resources, to broader use throughout the company. Although IT has traditionally been responsible for specifying and implementing technology within an organization, successful ERP implementations require involvement from stakeholders at all levels, from executives to end users. For many companies, the transition from existing traditional systems to a new ERP one can consume significant corporate resources, including time, expense, and risk to business operations. However, as we’ll explore below, this need not be the case.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


The software as a service (SaaS) model of application delivery, more commonly known as “cloud deployment,” in which software features are accessed through a Web browser, is an excellent way for manufacturing companies to get the benefits of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems without the need to build additional IT infrastructure. ERP functionality delivered “from the cloud” avoids the complexity and costs that often accompany on-premises ERP implementations, and typically provides a much more favorable total cost of ownership (TCO), compared to legacy on-premises deployment. Companies subscribe to the software features that they need and can add new ones as business requirements change, without buying additional servers or storage to support new functionality. The ERP features are the same as for an on-premises ERP system, except that it is hosted and maintained on the cloud provider’s infrastructure.

Epicor Software Corporation is a leading developer of ERP software and systems based in Austin, Texas, with more than 40 years of experience in building ERP systems for thousands of customers around the world. Christine Hansen, a product marketing manager at Epicor with experience in the manufacturing business sector, presents some of the best practices used by discrete manufacturers. She also explains the benefits of the Epicor Cloud ERP solution.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


For any company trying to establish—or even simply maintain—a foothold in today’s rapidly changing business environment, the rate at which Industry 4.0 is expanding can feel overwhelming.

Standard business practices are shifting. New technologies are bursting onto the scene every week, and the average business has more data on hand and more ways to process that information than the biggest companies did 25 years ago. All of these changes seem to be happening at a quicker and quicker pace.

There is one other significant way the current environment differs from the first three revolutions. When we talk about Industry 4.0, it’s not just factories producing the goods that consumers and businesses want to buy that are dominating the field. Without a doubt, software companies still focus on manufacturers. For example, Epicor partners with numerous manufacturing sectors to provide the cutting-edge data analytics, business intelligence, and enterprise resource planning (ERP) resources that companies need to compete.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


You have likely experienced the interminable hourglass spin while trying to open a large spreadsheet, or have spent multiple hours manually typing handwritten information into a system. In our data-driven world, it is safe to say that troubled encounters with large quantities of data are becoming the norm. Our data footprint has increased considerably over the past 15 years, jumping from 130 billion to 40 trillion gigabytes between 2005 and 2021. The data revolution opened up opportunities for organizations to analyze human behavior more deeply and develop more refined business strategies.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


The average smartphone has more than 60 installed apps, but you most likely learned how to use them with minimal trouble. This is because the user experience in applications for personal use is so intuitive. Users rarely visit the ‘Help’ section, and even young children are proficient without needing guidance.

However, it’s not the same case in software development. Global enterprise IT spending reached $3.7 trillion in 2019, but much of the user experience in enterprise software remains stuck in the past. Applications were often developed with features and functions in mind first; user experience was an afterthought. read the white paper to learn more about the Strategic Value of Outstanding User Experience in the Workplace.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.