Harvest Ventures Customer News - October 2014
Welcome to National Manufacturing Month!
The Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters Association (CME) has named October the month to raise awareness about the social and economic impact of manufactuers in the country.
On October 7th, the CME released their 2014 Management Issues Survey (MIS) which may be of interest to you. Here is the link: http://www.cme-mec.ca/download.php?file=504c5iiu0.pdf
For more details about National Manufacturing Month, take a look at these websites:
http://www.icme.ca/
http://www.cme-mec.ca/
Are you a Tweeter? If so, you might want to follow these hashtags: #mfgmonth, #madebycanada, #MIS2014
IN THIS ISSUE:
- Manufacturing Day 2014
- Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
- Helpful Tips: Software Customizations and Specifcations
- Webinars & Recordings
- Harvest Ventures October Scheduling Note
MANUFACTURING DAY
Did you know that October 3rd was Manufacturing Day across North America?
The purpose of the day is to educate the public about manufacturing, connect with future generations and get them thinking about a career in manufacturing with the end goal of addressing the challenge of labour shortage that so many in the industry are experiencing.
Manufacturers across North America hosted tours of their facility and busloads of attendees (students, job seekers, employment professionals, those who were curious, etc.) signed up to take a look!
'Interested in learning more? Here is the main website: http://www.mfgday.com.
In Canada, this day is steadily gaining in popularity with various regions arranging their own local events. For instance, the Workforce Planning Board arranged plant tours in Kitchener, Waterloo and Guelph Ontario last week: http://www.workforceplanningboard.com.
Mark your calendar for 2015
Perhaps this is a day that will benefit your business. Why not take a look and see if you can get involved? If you do, please let us know, we'd like to promote your participation and attend your event!
ELECTRONIC DATA INTERCHANGE (EDI)
EDI is a piece of functionality that is gaining interest over this past year. It is used to exchange documents such as purchase orders, invoices and advance shipping notices (ASN) between manufacturers and distributors.
Many of our clients are asked to comply with the EDI requirements of various retailers they sell to and this initiates a discussion on the benefits of implementing EDI on a broader scale.
Other clients implement EDI because they process a high volume of transactions and will save significantly on the time spent manually entering data.
Depending on the industry, EDI could be a common practice. For instance, automotive, heavy equipment, electronics and third party logistics (3PL).
Since situations and business needs vary, Harvest Ventures has three solutions to offer our customers:
- Vantage Point EDI by Data Masons - software based EDI system that integrates with all Exact ERP software
- SPS Commerce - cloud based EDI system that uses an integration tool to communicate with Exact ERP software
- EDI Export Utility developed by Harvest Ventures that will generate the appropriate files for upload to specified providers
Do you think your business might benefit from EDI? Give us a call to discuss your situation.
HELPFUL TIPS: SOFTWARE CUSTOMIZATION AND SPECIFICATIONS
ERP software systems have evolved to the point where they are flexible enough to address most business needs, however; customizations to functionality and reporting still remain a requirement for most companies. In fact 89% of software implementations involve some degree of customization according to a report by Panorama Consulting.
This comes as no surprise. As you know, we've built a large portion of our business by developing a library of custom tools that we now sell as add-on products (Business Automation Tools) to the Exact product suite.
If you have run into a process that may benefit from a tweak or perhaps a complete overhaul, you might find these two articles helpful. There are some tips on determining when to customize, the difference between configuration and customization and the thought process you need to go through to define a change to your software.
If you have any questions after reading these articles, please give us a call!
WEBINARS & RECORDINGS
Recording: Real Time ERP and Integrated Warehouse Management with Exact Macola
Webinar: Exact Macola 10 Product Tours occur bi-weekly, check the schedule for upcoming dates
Please note that Harvest Ventures Staff will be meeting at the Calgary office the week of October 20th. We will do our best to minimize any disruption to on-going projects but it may take longer for us to get back to you.
Thanks in advance for your patience!