Resource planning options can be cloud-y
July 30, 2013
HP 3000 sites who're migrating face a wide range of tasks. Even if some of them can take their operations onto Windows -- and it seems nearly all of them want to -- they may not be able to transfer their applications. Apps like GrowthPower, for example, don't have the design to run on Windows. Making a transition off MPE will trigger the time to choose another resource planning suite at these sites.
"Can I move GrowthPower?" might seem to open the door on a major project. Especially if the MRP solution is tightly integrated with scripts, with job control software, and more. It's possible to rethink the concept of where MRP or ERP is hosted, though. It might not even be in your datacenter.
Kenandy Software has been offering an alternative to MANMAN for example. MANMAN is another one of those MPE applications that don't have a Windows landing pad, so anybody eyeing a new environment will be revamping their hosting architecture. If replacing MANMAN with Epicor or SAP looks like too large a project, Social ERP from Kenandy, run from up in the cloud, might be a better fit. It's for companies that design, manufacture and distribute products.
Kenandy talks about ERP as a collaboration resource, with "clear visibility both upstream and downstream, shared access to the right information for the right people all the time."
The manufacturing and financial management system has a manufacturing business process flow:
- Driving revenue and sales through communication with business partners
- Improving customer satisfaction by sharing real-time information with a supply chain
- Using a unique Salesforce Chatter, so a user can follow business processes between sales, purchasing and suppliers
- Controling supplier portal data access with Kenandy's security profile settings
- Gaining "a single source of truth" and 360 degree view between suppliers, company and customers
Kenandy calls it cloud ERP for the social enterprise, "everything you need for complete manufacturing and financial management in one integrated application, including complete opportunity-to-cash management."
Kenandy made a pitch to MANMAN users about its software at one of the previous CAMUS RUG meetings. The call was full of 3000 managers. The more time that elapses on this new idea, the more study of it appears. Bandwidth, redundancy, security -- the march of technology brings all of these within the realm of replacing an application on MPE.
There's an 8-minute video to explain more at the Kenandy site. This is an alternative that's been tracked and aided by contributions from The Support Group, MANMAN experts. If going into the cloud is being discussed at a un-migrated ERP site, Kenandy looks like it's got MPE bones: ASK Software Sandy Kurzig is one of the architects.