Great things happen when you take a single Epicor ERP transaction mobile
To say the current environment is uncertain for manufacturers—understatement of the day! Although we all hope the worst is behind us, manufacturing remains under intense pressure from cost volatility, policy shifts and, you know, that pandemic that’s still out there.
This makes shop floor efficiency more important than ever. Any time (and money!) you can save on a process helps boost productivity, profit and budget flexibility.
To spur such positive impacts, Deloitte sees manufacturers building their “digital muscle.” But small and mid-sized companies often find it difficult to dig up the dollars to invest in technology projects.
Don’t despair—we’re finally getting to the good news. Manufacturing operations already invested in an Epicor ERP system have a real opportunity to realize significantly greater efficiency with a very low up-front spend. All it takes is a mobile ERP app.
Epicor vs. Mobile App: A Head-to-Head Test
If you’ve checked out Bezlio before, you probably know that we recommend implementing our Epicor mobile ERP apps—we call them bezls—one at a time. Not all clients need to take it so slow, but it’s a low-risk approach that results in big rewards.
But we wanted to know, exactly how big are the gains from a single bezl? Being of the analytical mindset, we decided to do a test:
We chose one common manufacturing ERP transaction; in this case, entering purchase order receipts.
A proficient Epicor manufacturing user was timed processing purchase orders in the Epicor interface.
The same user, also proficient with Bezlio, was timed entering the transactions using a smartphone.
The ERP Mobile App Wins: 76% Time-Savings
I admit, even this technology evangelist was surprised by the added shop floor efficiency with Bezlio:
The purchase order receipt function in Epicor ERP took a total of 111.4 seconds.
That transaction in Bezlio took just 26.8 seconds.
Do the math and you see a difference of 84.6 seconds—or a 76% time-savings for every purchase order receipt the company handles.
Nearly a minute and a half may not sound like much on the surface, but manufacturers recognize how much impact such small process improvements can have at scale.
Consider that we at Bezlio routinely see clients processing 75 or more purchase order receipts each day. These customers are shaving almost two hours (1.76 hours for 75 transactions) off their daily labor. That’s approaching one-quarter of a staff position!
What It Costs to Get There
You may be excited about the potential efficiencies with Bezlio but still concerned with the cost and commitment involved.
Don’t be. Bezlio pays for itself (and then some), even in the first year.
Talking turkey (appropriate here in November), the price for an annual Bezlio account for up to 10 users is $4,200. This includes the first bezl of your choice.
How much do you pay just one employee in receiving? If it’s more than about $17,000 (and I’m sure it is), the 76% efficiency boost delivers more in labor savings than Bezlio costs.
Of course, many Bezlio customers do choose to customize their bezls to match their internal processes. The average investment among our clients is 20 hours, or $3,500. This is a one-time cost, after which the customized mobile ERP is available with the regular subscription. Even if you go this route (again, optional), you’re probably still in the black with just one bezl used by one employee in year one (a high bar), with additional gains on the way.
And what about implementation? Well, that takes about two hours. It’s not going to tie up key members of your organization or drag out for weeks. Bezlio really is a turnkey savings option.
More than 1 Manufacturing Employee
I hope I’ve got your brain buzzing with questions already—because yeah, you’ve got more than one employee. And you have other types of ERP transactions burning time every week.
What if you took advantage of all 10 of the Bezlio users that come with the base subscription? How would that increase the ROI?
What if you moved labor entry, location transfers, finished goods receipts and other transactions to the Bezlio platform? How much more shop floor efficiency improvement would you enjoy?
And how could you use the new information you’re capturing in Epicor to identify and eradicate more waste, streamline more processes and make other changes that positively affect your bottom line?
These are all good questions deserving full exploration—and that’s exactly what they’ll receive in our upcoming webinar, Unleashing Your ERP: How a Mobile App Digitally Transforms Your Business, on Wednesday, November 11th at 1 PM EST.
We expect to spend about an hour discussing Epicor mobile apps for manufacturing and the positive impacts actual clients have experienced. I’d say that’s a small time investment to discover a solution that could drive substantial efficiency gains now, when you need them most.
The best part, by participating, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions specific to your operations. Why not get insights from experts who have worked with literally thousands of manufacturers over more than a decade? Even one tip could prove invaluable.
So don’t miss out. Register now.