plex manufacturing cloud erp—running your business from ... · running your business from the...

Running Your Business from the Shop

Floor to the Top Floor

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP

Ted Rohm, TEC Senior ERP Analyst

May 2014

www.technologyevaluation.com

TEC SPOTLIGHT REPORT TEC Spotlight Reports give you an in-depth look at

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Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP—Running Your Business from the Shop Floor to the Top Floor www.technologyevaluation.com 2

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP—Cloud, Industry,

and Customer Focused

Plex Systems—In the Cloud Before the Cloud Was Cool

The benefits a cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution provides to a

manufacturing organization are now well documented. In a research note titled

Six Reasons Why Manufacturers Should Consider Cloud ERP, Nucleus Research

points out that “there are a number of benefits beyond total cost of ownership

to deploy cloud ERP, including increased flexibility, scalability, accelerating

deployment, business continuity, and usability.” The key takeaways from a report

by the Aberdeen Group, The Case for Cloud ERP in Manufacturing: Alleviating

Outdated Concerns, detail that the benefits of cloud solutions beyond overall cost

include “the ability to not rely on internal IT resources, enhanced collaboration

and visibility across the enterprise, scalability, and flexibility as SaaS deployments

are updated by the software vendors.”

However, the benefits of cloud enterprise resource planning (ERP) weren’t

always so clear. Plex Systems was founded in 1995 with the initial goal of

providing quality management systems for metal-forming manufacturers in the

motor vehicle industry (MVI). The company initially focused on core technology

for quality tracking, inventory management, and shop floor control. Plex Systems

was one of the earliest adopters of the cloud deployment model for software

delivery, and in 2001 shifted to SaaS as the only deployment model offered by

Plex Systems.

The majority of the ERP solution providers are only now catching up to Plex

Systems’ ability to deliver a SaaS solution via the cloud. Don’t be fooled by the

marketing hype—many of these vendors fall well short of delivering their “cloud”

solution on par with Plex. Some vendors are promoting cloud solutions that

merely run on Microsoft Azure or Amazon cloud service—this is little more than

supporting hard drives managed by the cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS)

provider. Other manufacturing solutions are now springing up on the Salesforce

platform, but require a company to purchase multiple other component

subscription packages to build out a complete ERP solution. Even other ERP

vendors are relying on third-party implementers and integrators to set up and

support their products in the cloud, but do not stand 100% behind the

cloud deployment.

Plex has been delivering its SaaS cloud solution for more than a decade now.

Having a pure SaaS offering means that the software vendor fully supports all the

networking, infrastructure, and software needed to run the system. The vendor

manages the data centers, commits to uptime service level agreements (SLAs),

which in the case of Plex is 99.9% uptime, and maintains things like hot backups

Plex Systems was one of the earliest adopters of the cloud deployment model for software delivery, and in

2001 shifted to SaaS as the only deployment model offered by Plex

Systems.

http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/white-paper/Six-Reasons-Why-Manufacturers-Should-Consider-Cloud-ERP.html

http://www.technologyevaluation.com/download/white-paper/159996/The-Case-for-Cloud-ERP-in-Manufacturing-Alleviating-Outdated-Concerns.html

http://www.technologyevaluation.com/download/white-paper/159996/The-Case-for-Cloud-ERP-in-Manufacturing-Alleviating-Outdated-Concerns.html


to dedicated failover servers. In short, all a company needs to run Plex

Manufacturing Cloud ERP is an Internet connection.

Industry Focus

Born on the shop floor, Plex Manufacturing Cloud today provides global

manufacturers with what Plex Systems describes as “shop floor to top floor

visibility of their operations.” Plex believes the plant floor is the heart of the

manufacturing business, and, by creating a platform for continuous innovation,

Plex Manufacturing Cloud can be a powerful catalyst for its customers’ continued,

profitable growth.

Plex Systems focuses squarely on servicing the needs of six target industries.

The company doesn’t stray from these markets just to pick up business—all the

company’s efforts and attention are geared toward the following industries:

• Aerospace and Defense

• Motor Vehicles

• High-Tech and Electronics

• Industrial Manufacturing

• Precision Metal forming

• Food and Beverage

This allows Plex Manufacturing Cloud to excel in serving the needs of each of

these verticals, with each showing a different facet of the Plex’s core strengths.

Customer Focus

Plex Systems has succeeded in putting the needs of its customers first with its

unique software. This leads to a product development process that is customer

driven. Enhancements to the product are based on customer requests that come

from an active and engaged customer community. The changes are then rapidly

deployed with three significant updates released annually, and other updates

rolled out at times on a daily basis.

Plex Systems doesn’t lock in customers to perpetual licensing agreements

with annual maintenance fees. Rather, more than 90% of its customers are on

annual contracts, and thus Plex must earn the right to sell the software to these

customers again each year. This sense of urgency and intensity to meet customer

demands and expectations galvanizes everyone at Plex Systems to maintain a

high-quality product and drive continuous improvement across all areas of

the company.


Plex—Overcoming Challenges and the Future

The Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP solution is not without weaknesses, and Plex

Systems works to continuously improve its product based on customer needs.

An example of how the company responds to customer needs is evidenced in

the recent enhancements in support of multi-entity financials. Plex’s Customer

Advisory Boards challenged the company to augment the breadth and depth

of financial reporting and analysis. In response to this need, “the product

management, engineering, global support services, and product marketing teams

created a cross-functional team that has the purpose to quickly develop, fine-tune,

and launch Multi-Entity Financials. Plex beat our own internal timelines and is

ready to deliver this valuable functionality to our customers,” reports Louis

Columbus, Product Marketing Manager.

Jason Blessing, chief executive officer (CEO) of Plex Systems, states: “We are

focused on helping manufacturers drive down cost, increase quality, and enhance

productivity. Thousands of users rely on the Plex Manufacturing Cloud today in

the auto, aerospace, and food industries.”

Product Overview—“shop floor to top floor”

Plex Systems’ flagship product, Plex Manufacturing Cloud (formerly known as

Plex Online), is a SaaS ERP solution created for high-precision and high-liability

manufacturing industries. The solution extends beyond the boundaries of typical

ERP software for manufacturers to provide a comprehensive “shop floor to top

floor” solution. The manufacturing ERP modules delivered in the cloud include

accounting and finance; customer and sales management; human resources;

inventory management; production management; product and program

management; and supply chain management, all with business platform

foundation support including business intelligence, document management,

and workflows.

Plex Manufacturing Cloud is unique in that it combines the aforementioned

common ERP modules with integrated modules for manufacturing execution

systems (MES), quality management, customer relationship management (CRM),

shop floor integration, and more into a single, fully integrated solution. This

enables companies to effectively and efficiently manage virtually every aspect of

their manufacturing operations. Highly regulated and compliance-driven

industries including aerospace and defense rely on Plex Manufacturing Cloud to

simplify and streamline their manufacturing operations while attaining

compliance and greater profitability.


Fit and Finish

Layout

The layout of the system is simple and user friendly, even for people on the shop

floor (and if even if they use touch screens). The main menus are organized as

screens containing icons and hyperlinks, and each screen has a few buttons

available at the top for the main functions (e.g., Add, Back, Delete, Help, etc.).

If necessary, a more detailed menu can be obtained by right-clicking anywhere

on the screen. Figure 1 shows a sample of the main menu of Plex Manufacturing

Cloud.

Ease of Use

The screens throughout the solution are purpose built with the end user in mind.

The screens were not designed for wowing the user with an endless number of

tabs or detailed information that is used only a fraction of the time. Common

screens use common everyday titles such as orders, invoices, inventory ship ready,

and shipping. Though the detailed information needed to manage complex

operations is available, the system doesn’t overwhelm the user with complexity.

A good example, given below, is the shipping screen. The critical information

needed to process the shipments, with color-coded visual cues, is immediately

obvious to the end user.


In contrast to most traditional ERP vendors that create manuals or files of

frequently asked questions (FAQs) to share with their customers, Plex’s online

help is in the form of a wiki. Customers can contribute to it by adding to the

community knowledge base or by extending it with proprietary information that is

available to only its own users.

Key Product Differentiators

Real-Time Shop Floor Monitoring and Control

The simple, easy-to-use user interface belies the depth of functionality supported

by Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP. The almost naive-looking screens hide the fact

that Plex is built for the shop floor, where the action really takes place in

manufacturing operations. The figure below shows the Plex Control Panel, with all

the areas of production coming together at the time of running production. The

control panel allows operators to log on to equipment, authorizes the operation

based on training, presents the proper quality and process documents for the job

at hand, captures and provides alerts on quality thresholds, and connects with

maintenance and problem resolution.

The simple, easy-to-use user interface belies the depth of functionality supported by Plex Manufacturing Cloud.


Quality Module

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP’s quality module relies on database fields rather

than stored documents for all of the quality documents that are generated. This

allows updating of product specification details to be performed in one place and

then replicated to all dependent documents, such as control plans, check sheets,

failure mode and effect analysis (FMEA) documentation, and process flow charts.

Check sheets are generated dynamically, and quality control questions can be

placed automatically in a flipped/reversed manner to force operators to pay

attention to the data entered every time.

Business Platform Support

The Business Intelligence and Foundation modules provide the underlying

business platform support in Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP. And, like other parts

of the system, these modules provide deep functionality without being overly

complex. Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP has a complete suite of business platform

tools including document management, workflow, a reporting system, and

SmartPlex Mobile Access modules, which are all combined to form the Plex

Manufacturing Cloud ERP Foundation.

Other modules included in the Plex Foundation module include VisionPlex, which

allows an organization to customize the appearance and functionality of standard

VisionPlex screens and reports; and create entirely new proprietary dashboards,

screens, reports and data downloads—all without needing the user to have any

formal programming experience. The SmartPlex mobile access provides the

anywhere, anytime mobile device access—as SmartPlex is available for Android

and Apple iOS devices.


Figure 4. Plex Inventory Tracking on Symbol Mobile Device

Business Intelligence (BI)

IntelliPlex is Plex’s solution for delivering business information and intelligence to

its user community. This is a dynamic BI tool that provides comprehensive

reporting and analysis to turn the systems’ data into meaningful information. A

graphical dashboard of key executive reports in Plex Manufacturing Cloud is

presented here as figure 5.


From the graphically displayed chart of the company’s accounts receivable (AR)

aging, a controller can easily drill into the accounts with receivables that are more

than 90 days past due. A single click on the bar graph then takes the user into the

detailed listing of these accounts shown below in figure 6. Intelliplex is built into

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP—not bolted on. Being built into the system allows

for tight integration and instant access to the underlying transactional data. The

solution delivers active reporting, where users can filter, calculate, chart, roll up,

and perform pivot table analysis all within Intelliplex.


Case Study—EaglePicher Technologies

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP is used by hundreds of organizations and currently

supports more than 40,000 users across the globe on a daily basis. There are many

satisfied, and quotable customers, but the aerospace and engineering firm EaglePicher

Technologies stands out.

EaglePicher Technologies (EPT) is using Plex Manufacturing Cloud to simplify the most

complex aspects of its business, which include orchestrating suppliers globally while

remaining compliant with a wide spectrum of customer and aerospace and defense

requirements. Adding to the complexity is the company’s engineer-to-order (ETO)

selling and production strategy, which requires real-time supplier coordination and

communication. EaglePicher relies on Plex Manufacturing Cloud on a daily basis to

manage and simplify these complex tasks.

How does Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP system succeed in meeting EaglePicher’s

requirements?

Plex Manufacturing Cloud enables EaglePicher Technologies to attain exponential gains

in manufacturing compliance performance, profitability, and quality by reducing many

manual tasks in purchasing, production, and quoting.

Plex Manufacturing Cloud delivered the following results by precisely understanding this

customer’s needs and thoroughly implementing a solution that met their biggest

challenges:

• Accurate consignment tracking reduced inventory valuation requirements,

increased net income, and improved cash flow.

• Cloud-based ERP software simplified reporting, streamlined internal processes,

and eliminated the need for manual tracking and the risk of duplicate data

entries.

• EPT achieved a reduction in inventory valuation of $350,000 (USD) within the

first 18 months of using the ERP system.

Visit the Aerospace Manufacturing and Design Web site to read more on EaglePicher’s

implementation of Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP. To view more Plex customer case

studies, visit the Plex Systems company page on TEC’s Web site.

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http://www.technologyevaluation.com/research/company/Plex-Systems.html


Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP Benefits

Plex delivers many benefits that differentiate Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP from its

direct competitors. Many Plex’s competitors are unable to match Plex Manufacturing

Cloud ERP in the following areas:

• Deep expertise in quality management and traceability—these are core

strengths of Plex Manufacturing Cloud learned from decades of serving

customers’ needs on the shop floor.

• Plex customers have complete visibility into their operations and plant data,

and can leverage those details to drive profits.

• Plex’s focus on driving continuous innovation makes it easy for customers to

continually grow, innovate, and update processes.

• The one true manufacturing cloud for the shop floor that provides access to

applications from anywhere, anytime on any device.

• Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP runs on industrial-strength and secure data

centers, fundamentally lowering the information technology (IT) costs of an

organization.

• With Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP, customers only pay for what they need,

and the focus is on configuration, not customization.

• As Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP is delivered entirely online, there are no

costly, time-consuming software upgrades and thus no costs associated with

keeping servers and operating systems current.

Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP delivers on the promise of cloud computing, enabling

anytime, anywhere access to a complete ERP solution built from the shop floor out.

With Plex Manufacturing Cloud ERP, organizations can increase throughput and

efficiency within existing facilities, squeeze out more profits from every order,

understand where they are most exposed to risk, respond to customer demand, and

keep up with the speed and volume of data on the plant floor.

Small-to-midsized manufacturers in the aerospace and defense, motor vehicles,

high-tech and electronics, industrial manufacturing, precision metal forming, and

food and beverage industries looking for a complete ERP solution and all the additional

benefits provided by a SaaS solution would be well served by taking a look at Plex

Manufacturing Cloud ERP.


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