Patrice Commune, CEO of Inlynk dispels the myth that new Enterprise Resource Planning technologies (ERP) are an unaffordable option for smaller companies and explores how such systems are an invaluable resource for effective management of electronics design, finance and inventory
The term Enterprise Resource Planning may have many electronic design companies running for cover as they envisage super high-tech software systems with a high price tag. However, ERP is something that can benefit all businesses both large and small and benefit the distribution supply chain, without breaking the bank.
The European electronics design industry comprises around 450,000 companies, of all sizes; of which it is estimated around 250,000 are using some sort of ERP solution. But what of the rest? This means that 200,000 companies out there are missing out on effective integration and flow of information – which can help a business run smoothly, increase productivity and therefore directly affect the bottom line.
ERP solutions though effectively proven in their ability to mange the requirements of electronic design engineers, the concept is however clouded by a misconception that affordability of such systems are beyond many SMEs.
As an ERP solutions provider, Inlynk has worked in this industry for more than two decades and are well accustomed to the requirements of electronic design engineers.
What became alarmingly apparent to the company through customer feedback is the lack of availability of an affordable product that could greatly help a company and the supply chain by bridging the gap between electronics design, finance and inventory management – all key elements of the business which need to integrate in order to be effective, but rarely do.
Many companies were operating and managing these functions on generic applications such as Microsoft Excel – with disparate spreadsheets all displaying relevant information but with no real way of integrating these.
This customer feedback became the roadmap for the product and the driving force behind the development of the company’s new ‘Optymo’ ERP tool.
It became apparent that the EDA market was in need of a tailor-made solution that could handle the complexity, detail and precision of the parts management process – something which could provide users with real-time inventory control, ordering, costing and project management data. There was no product available on the market that could do this – and existing ERP solutions were too expensive for smaller EDA companies to buy into.
“With cost being a significant barrier for many small to medium-sized EDA companies, Inlynk decided to make their ERP solution accessible by making it subscription-based at a reasonable rate with a variety of options to choose from”
With cost being a significant barrier for many small to medium-sized EDA companies, Inlynk decided to make their ERP solution accessible by making it subscription-based at a reasonable rate with a variety of options to choose from in terms of number of users, so that a sliding scale of costs can cater for all budgets.
The end user profile covers purchasing and finance, research and designers, customers and suppliers and inventory management.
For purchasing and finance managers, centralising parts purchasing processes helps increase efficiency, saving time and money and reducing risk. Cost-effective decisions can be made accurately using the system, as purchasing decisions can be made based on a customer order, a production requirement, an automatic stock replenishment or a combination of those.
Previously there had been countless stories from customers about under-ordering and over-ordering – both of which can have damaging effects on a business in terms of productivity and bottom line profit. Since the ERP system is designed to track and manage internal inventory, it can be used to ensure that all departments have the quantities necessary for daily production and operations.
In addition, effective and efficient purchasing decisions are facilitated by automatically selecting the best suppliers using qualitative and quantitative criteria such as reliability, speed, price, lead-time and service – and by centralising purchasing, the solution helps achieve effective volume discounts and significant cost savings.
All pertinent historical buying information is available, enabling time and money savings by making better purchasing decisions and there is a reduction of paperwork related to purchasing processes. It can also produce instant pre-configured reports and purchasing requests that the software automatically ties to the Purchase Orders for the selected suppliers.
For inventory managers, the capability to categorise and sub-categorise stock according to their own preferences and to either automatically or manually generate internal part, lot and serial numbers is a major benefit.
Complete or partial initialisation of inventories can also be achieved with a single click, to give organisations the benefits associated with interactive inventory counts – and because it provides exact real-time updated views of stock and automatically manages inventory after an initial physical count, companies can efficiently manage both internal stock as well as stock sent out to contract manufacturers.
By continually updating inventory information, overstocking is eliminated and the production teams can effectively use existing inventory.
For research and designers, by optimising the management, R&D, and design processes, this solution helps production and design departments reduce the cost of goods and inventory to gain greater control over their production cycles – as well as effectively and efficiently manage production steps and resources and to track costs, raw materials, and finished goods.
The ERP system addresses all the requirements of the EDA market in an easy-to-use and cost effective manner.
Inlynk
