As the manufacturing industry navigates an ever-changing and fast-paced market, leveraging AI in Supply Chain Management optimization has become crucial for gaining a competitive edge. AI is a computer model that enables programs to contextualize different tasks, make decisions, and generate assumptions that typically require human intelligence. It can “learn” and grow its understanding over time through interaction with its hosting interface.

Transition to Epicor’s AI Solutions

Recognizing the transformative potential of AI, companies are increasingly seeking advanced solutions to enhance their supply chain operations. Epicor, a leader in enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, offers innovative AI platforms designed to meet this demand. Through a strategic partnership with Encompass Solutions, a Premier Epicor Partner, businesses can leverage these cutting-edge technologies to streamline their processes, improve efficiency, and stay ahead in a competitive market.

Epicor’s AI Solutions

Encompass Solutions connects the robust Epicor Kinetic manufacturing software with companies that rely on it to enhance the efficiency of their internal systems. To keep pace with the rapidly changing environment, Epicor and Encompass are working with individual companies to implement generative and predictive AI, streamlining the connection between suppliers and manufacturers. This integration enables efficient and effective operations with minimal human involvement.

Epicor’s specific AI platforms, Prism and Grow, integrate seamlessly with their Kinetic ERP software, providing a conversational approach to system programming and data-driven decision-making. Companies can partner with Encompass to implement, customize, and maximize these AI solutions, empowering their businesses through the implementation process, direct customization, staff training, and ongoing support.

Benefits of AI in Supply Chain Optimization

Generative and predictive AI streamlines the connection between optimal suppliers and manufacturers by automating processes, reducing the need for manual effort. Here are some key benefits:

  • Automation of Supplier Sorting and System Programming: AI automates these processes, cutting administrative costs and time.
  • Enhanced Efficiency: AI-powered demand forecasting, inventory optimization, and bottleneck identification limit delays and boost efficiency.
  • Actionable Recommendations: AI provides customized, actionable recommendations, reducing complexity and required expertise.
  • Data-Driven Decisions: Epicor’s Prism AI facilitates smarter decision-making through conversational programming and data analysis.
  • Predictive Analytics: Grow leverages historical data to forecast future supply chain requirements precisely, enhancing efficiency, agility, and precision with minimal human intervention.

This AI-driven approach allows companies to gain a competitive edge by quickly responding to market changes and customer demands.

Introduction to Epicor AI (Prism and Grow)

Epicor’s core AI platforms, Prism and Grow, offer a powerful combination of generative and predictive capabilities to optimize the entire supply chain:

  • Prism: Integrated into Epicor’s ERP software, Prism provides a seamless user experience with conversational AI. It acts as an action-oriented chatbot, enabling natural language interactions for programming and supplier access.
  • Grow: This platform focuses on predictive analytics, connecting inventory, orders, and sales data to forecast supply chain requirements. It unlocks large-scale data access and analysis, deriving insights from disparate data sources without direct interface interactions.

How Encompass Solutions Can Help

Encompass Solutions Inc., the Premier Epicor Partner, provides comprehensive support for companies adopting Epicor’s AI-powered solutions. Their services include:

  • Expert Guidance: Leading companies through each stage of the AI implementation process with expertise and best practices.
  • Customization: Offering direct customization of Epicor’s AI solutions to meet each company’s unique specifications and requirements.
  • Training: Providing comprehensive training to equip staff with the necessary skills to fully leverage AI functions and capabilities.
  • Ongoing Support: Delivering continuous support and service to address any post-deployment issues or challenges promptly.

One notable success story is Epicor’s partnership with the Visa Cash App Red Bull Formula One Team. They integrated Prism, their generative AI, within the Kinetic manufacturing software to optimize production and supply chain management. Prism connects to the supplier market, allowing the team to reach out to a vast pool of suppliers quickly, sort them based on specified parameters, and independently engage selected vendors. This capability enabled the team to procure highly customized parts rapidly while limiting manual labor.

  • Speed and Efficiency: Weeks’ worth of supplier research and procurement efforts were condensed into minutes through AI-driven automation.
  • Flexibility: Rapid adjustments and flexibility in adapting to evolving production requirements and process changes were enabled.
  • Intuitive Interface: Actionable programming and execution were facilitated directly from Prism’s user-friendly interface.

Leveraging AI in Supply Chain Management optimization with Epicor’s Prism and Grow platforms, supported by Encompass Solutions, empowers companies to streamline operations, reduce costs, and enhance efficiency. This technological advancement positions businesses to respond swiftly to market demands and maintain a competitive edge in the manufacturing industry. For more information about AI and automation in supply chain management visit www.oldencompass.sevenagesdesign.com


The confluence of an improved market outlook, the shift to the cloud, the pressure of digital transformation, and replacement cycle dynamics have created one of the biggest growth opportunities for enterprise resource planning (ERP) refreshes. New cloud deployments provide a catalyst for improving and automating back-office processes like never before.

This Market Overview examines the wide range of cloud ERP solutions based on product- versus services-centric offerings and unregulated versus regulated solutions. While the number of vendors in the market has diminished due to mergers and acquisitions, the consolidation has led to concentrated platform investments in the cloud and exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, augmented reality, the Internet of Things, 5G, and blockchain.

Successful deployments will achieve the elusive goal of improving efficiencies and preparing for exponential growth. The use of AI in the back office will power the next wave of post-digital ERP advancements.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Key themes woven into our worldwide manufacturing top 10 predictions for 2021 include the focus on the ecosystems, supply chain management, product and service innovation, quality, technology consolidation, and AI. These predictions span the manufacturing value chain, as DX continues to be embraced by all parts of the business. This IDC study provides manufacturers with the top 10 predictions and underlying drivers that we expect to impact manufacturers’ IT investments in 2021 and beyond. Technology leaders and their counterparts in the line-of-business (LOB) operations can use this document to guide their IT strategic planning efforts.

IDC provides its top 10 predictions for the manufacturing industry with an analysis that covers five years. The predictions are designed to provide organizational decision makers with a call-to-action investment plan concerning these technologies

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


You have likely experienced the interminable hourglass spin while trying to open a large spreadsheet, or have spent multiple hours manually typing handwritten information into a system. In our data-driven world, it is safe to say that troubled encounters with large quantities of data are becoming the norm. Our data footprint has increased considerably over the past 15 years, jumping from 130 billion to 40 trillion gigabytes between 2005 and 2021. The data revolution opened up opportunities for organizations to analyze human behavior more deeply and develop more refined business strategies.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, or renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Epicor Virtual Agent (EVA) is intelligence personified. An artificial intelligence (AI) tool for your ERP system, its context-aware, natural language processing (NLP) allows users to interact with EVA just like they would with any other colleague—either by talking or texting. This makes the breadth and depth of the industry-specific functionality and information available inside the system directly accessible to a larger audience—boosting productivity and efficiency and giving your company an improved return on ERP investment. But that is just one aspect of EVA. More than just a chatbot, EVA returns richly formatted information with multiple button choices for suggested next actions.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm specializing in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Recent technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), analytics, the cloud, the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, mobility, and robotics have the potential to connect billions of transactions to and from disparate systems, to smart machines, and unimaginable amounts of data.

To remain competitive, manufacturers must deliver high-quality, innovative products and get them to market faster. By making better use of data, manufacturers can better predict customer demand, quickly adjust to changes in the marketplace, accelerate the engineer-to-order process, and communicate more efficiently within an optimized value chain.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm specializing in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Defining Industrial Transformation (IX), measuring companies’ progress along the journey, and identifying the best practices of leaders ― that’s been the focus of LNS Research for several years. A wide range of emerging technologies power industrial companies’ transformation efforts, and they’re changing the way organizations run operations. Chief
among them are:

  • Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) technologies are designed to make sense of the incredible stream of data generated in plants and factories; and
  • Artificial intelligence (AI), monitors and analyzes that data and seeks ways to improve operations through digital insights.

After an extensive period of testing and pilot projects, these rapidly evolving technologies and use cases are having a real-world impact on industrial operations and production today ― in some surprising ways.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning and Big Data are recognized as the #1 and #2 most hyped technologies in the industrial technology landscape today. At the same time, the hype is not void of momentum, compared to the 2018 Analytics That Matter (ATM) study; there has been a dramatic increase in analytics capabilities over the past two years. LNS survey data shows that there has been a 52% increase in the share of industrial companies with a formal analytics program. There also has been a 102% increase in diagnostic capabilities and a 66% increase in predictive capabilities. That is the good news.

Unfortunately, the industry also still has significant challenges. We have only seen a 39% increase in prescriptive capabilities – well behind the increases in diagnostic and predictive. Furthermore, all of these increases in analytics capabilities have had a limited impact on ultimate operational and business performance. Average Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) and average On-Time Delivery show no appreciable improvement over this same two-year time period.

In this new study, LNS Research will show how analytics is a critical component of Industrial Transformation (IX) and how the enhanced decision-making capabilities provided by analytics can help drive success in transformation and improve business results.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


Below is a quick tutorial on how to leverage the Epicor Virtual Agent (EVA) to complete an array of sales and customer service functions as part of the Epicor ERP solution.

 

About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.


About Encompass Solutions

Encompass Solutions is a business and software consulting firm that specializes in ERP systems, EDI, and Managed Services support for Manufacturers and Distributors. Serving small and medium-sized businesses since 2001, Encompass modernizes operations and automates processes for hundreds of customers across the globe. Whether undertaking full-scale implementation, integration, and renovation of existing systems, Encompass provides a specialized approach to every client’s needs. By identifying customer requirements and addressing them with the right solutions, we ensure our clients are equipped to match the pace of the Industry.