Larry_Jones
Legendary Poster
Looking for advice from those who have been there / done that.
Our little manufacturing company (under $100M revenue, around 400 employees) is in the process of creating small "service centers" as separate subsidiaries in several regions of the world. This is new for us. Initially these "service centers" will provide sales (distribution) and service activities for customers in their geographic region. We're only talking about 4 of these subsidiaries.
What's being tossed about is whether or not to use JDE as the business system for these subsidiaries. Given that the number of employees at each subsidiary will be just 4 or 5, we're not sure if the cost of setting up everything to operate locally is worth it. We (I.T.) have been told that the subsidiaries will need to take sales orders, purchase material, and track inventory. A independant accounting firm will handle finances (A/P, A/R, G/L). The Director for these service centers additionally wants all screens and menus to be in the local language, and of course all documents (Purchase Orders's, etc) should be in the local language. All item information (Descriptions, item notes, attachments, etc) should also be in multiple languages as well as UDC code descriptions, etc. And of course we will need to setup the appropriate currencies.
I fully understand that JDE is capable of doing all this. What we're questioning is whether or not the size (and initial low business volume) justifies the amount of setup work we'd have to do to make this happen . . . not that we know everything we'd need to do to make it happen
. I'm also concerned about the impact of local regulations that we in the U.S. would be unaware of. The alternative suggestion is to tell the subsidiaries to buy a local software package and only send summary financial information to corporate HQ.
Given that our I.T. support for JDE is two people that are business analysts, CNC Admins, database admins, programmers, and all-around help desk, we know that we'll need help to go the JDE route.
I hope that's enough background. What I'm looking for is advice on the pro's and con's of trying to implement JDE as described as well as the scope of resources we'd require to do it. If there are people out there who have done this already a recounting of your experiences would be greatly apppreciated.
Thanks-in-advance,
Our little manufacturing company (under $100M revenue, around 400 employees) is in the process of creating small "service centers" as separate subsidiaries in several regions of the world. This is new for us. Initially these "service centers" will provide sales (distribution) and service activities for customers in their geographic region. We're only talking about 4 of these subsidiaries.
What's being tossed about is whether or not to use JDE as the business system for these subsidiaries. Given that the number of employees at each subsidiary will be just 4 or 5, we're not sure if the cost of setting up everything to operate locally is worth it. We (I.T.) have been told that the subsidiaries will need to take sales orders, purchase material, and track inventory. A independant accounting firm will handle finances (A/P, A/R, G/L). The Director for these service centers additionally wants all screens and menus to be in the local language, and of course all documents (Purchase Orders's, etc) should be in the local language. All item information (Descriptions, item notes, attachments, etc) should also be in multiple languages as well as UDC code descriptions, etc. And of course we will need to setup the appropriate currencies.
I fully understand that JDE is capable of doing all this. What we're questioning is whether or not the size (and initial low business volume) justifies the amount of setup work we'd have to do to make this happen . . . not that we know everything we'd need to do to make it happen
Given that our I.T. support for JDE is two people that are business analysts, CNC Admins, database admins, programmers, and all-around help desk, we know that we'll need help to go the JDE route.
I hope that's enough background. What I'm looking for is advice on the pro's and con's of trying to implement JDE as described as well as the scope of resources we'd require to do it. If there are people out there who have done this already a recounting of your experiences would be greatly apppreciated.
Thanks-in-advance,