It was brought up in conversation that with another acquisition we are making that they are on P21. I was asked my thoughts about moving to the product. I made the comment this would be the same process as moving to any ERP solution. We are mostly a distribution company with little job creation. Job creation is mostly in the form of assemblies for some products so we use the job instead of creation 80K kits. We do not ‘make’ anything directly any more.
we had purchased ECM (Docstar), Quickship and 1 EDI source. We would look at a SaaS model as we have reduced out footprint. My CFO was told that have a replacement for Tableau. I think what she means in they must have EDA. I don’t see it per say as replacement but a solution. There is a confusion on Tableau and the data warehouse behind it (working on that understanding).
So questions that I would have is what would we be gaining and losing by making this move.
Anyone have some experience in moving between products?
I’m curious about this too. While the core ERP base is pure Epicor (ground up dev), P21 was part of a merger/acquisition of an existing product, as I understand it… and is why all the EpicCare etc is silo’d separately from the ERP base. Even the UX/UI is different from the Kinetic movement as well.
Thus, I wouldn’t expect this to be a straight migration at all. I wonder if the two will ever “merge” and share a common API/REST base on the extended roadmap.
That would be interesting if the did that Jeff. As for us right now its off the table as the company we are looking at to purchase is not using it, but was looking into it, so I was misinformed.
There are aspects I like form what I seen about P21 so lets see
Good afternoon and I know this is an older thread that I had started. I was on a call with our new management team, and they have asked about this. One of the companies we had purchased was looking at P21 before they were purchased and are pushing to have the product and not ERP.
What this would look like is:
a multi-company configuration
Parent company to manage master data and rollups
2 separate companies to start
First company would be coming from Quickbooks and Fishbowl ERP
Second company (the one I am with) from Kinetic to P21
Modules we would like:
– Shipping for Parcel and LTL with Rate Shopping (We use quickship in Kinetic would that work)
– ECM (Docstar) for AP flow and additional document storage
– 1 EDI Source for EDI Management
– API connection to Amazon Seller Central, BigCommerce, eBay, and Magento (Would this be automation studio or does it have connections)
My understanding that P21 fits distribution businesses while ERP fits manufacturing businesses. Just throwing that out for consideration. They’re really not clean swaps as I understand their markets.
I agree Mark and both of the company’s business model is Distribution but before I came to the company, they had purchased ERP aka Kinetic. Before John time and could not change it. When I asked if we wanted to move management said no. Now we are owned by a different conversation, and they are considering the change. Maybe 1-2% is job assembly which could be handled just with Sales Kits.
For the new company we can switch gears and set them up in P21 as they are not in Kinetic yet. My concern is with moving our current operations from Kinetic to P21 in time and cost as a second company.
I thought I would ask the user group if anyone has done this.
My guess is it is a pretty uncommon move - have you asked your account manager for any reference accounts? They would have insight through consulting services if they had helped a customer follow this path.
I was told that P21 was leading in tech stack and Kinetic is following in its shadow. For example EVA I heard was used like crazy with P21… I’ve never seen P21. Some of the Architecture Kinetic is adopting, was conceived in P21. Not sure how much of that is true… but I heard it from a friend of a friend.
That’s a huge issue with an implementation I am working on right now… 70% of the business is manufacturing and the other 30% is distribution… is Kinetic the right choice? SMH at this very tough predicament.
I was in a similar situation some years ago. Business went with E10.0 ( at the time) and I think it was regrettable. For all its strengths, Epicor ERP/Kinetic is just not a fit for distribution, especially big box distribution. I believe companies who are successful with using Epicor in a distribution environment invest in EDI and integrated/external warehousing/packing solutions to make it work.
Exactly, how could you not invest in a third party system- I have yet to speak with a company that does distribution out of the box with Kinetic ERP. I’ve asked my CAM, I’ve asked the regional, I’ve asked on here (Imagine... Electronic Shelf Labels - #5 by utaylor).
@aosemwengie1 do you know anyone doing distribution with Kinetic ERP?
I have been following this and thought I would chime in.
We have been involved with distributors for over 30 years with Epicor and Infor solutions. We have at one time been a P21 Solutions Provider for Epicor. We have talked to E10 and Kinetic customers in the past, but have not engaged.
That said…P21 is definitely for distributors and doesn’t really play in the manufacturing arena. Kinetic could play in the distribution arena, but not well. It focuses on manufacturing.
Both are based upon MS SQL, so architecture is not really an issue. The addon functionality like EDI, eCommerce, PIM are NOT the core of Epicor. Full disclosure We offer those solutions to P21 users through our own APIs. Speaking of APIs, Epicor’s APIs are expensive and require a lot of technology.
We have not come across anyone in the P21 world that came from Kinetic. Doesn’t mean that it cannot be done or is not the right decision.
If you want to discuss further, let me know and we can chat.
I ran distribution through epicor, after an acquisition and we already ran epicor at the parent. Made it work fine. Probably not elegant, but no issues. Would have been difficult without AMM.
I did consulting for both products, mainly E10 but also P21 for a couple of years. Now doing inhouse consulting and development for one of my last E10 customers, which should have been a P21 client, won’t elaborate on the whys…
You can make E10 work for distribution but I would have preferred P21. Low manufacturing is much easier in P21, less overhead and windows to deal with, much easier for the end user.
Worst part of E10 still is speed, and unless the backbone is finally sped up in Kinetic we won’t even consider moving.
Now re moving from E10 to P21 or reverse, you have to see it as a complete new implementation, they have in common as much as any other ERP system, not only because they had been two different companies. same as you would move from Epicor Enterprise to ERP.
If you are a true distributor and have the option, I would go P21 any day. It just does out of the box most distribution tasks you have to “teach” ERP.
Having said that it’s been a few years but I don’t think P21 has stalled since Also absolutely loved the original dev and support team from P21, dedicated and responsive is all I can say!
Good luck
Utaylor, If you have the need for that much Manufactuing its properly the right fit. In my case I think we can bring up the other company and then migrate over my company rather than trying to make it fit. If you would like to talk about it reach out and we can schedule a call. Neither our two companies support traditional manufacturing and rather we have assemblies into stock or sales kits.
Andreas - Thank you for your advice and I am going to represent this today. I was in favor years ago with moving to P21 (or another distribution ERP but was told no). New ownership will spend were needed and the company we purchased was in discussion about moving to P21.
I can see where Kinetic has taken from P21 and I think the over feel and ‘smoothness’ s there.
If you have some time to talk, I do have some specific question. Just let me know what works for you.
Also absolutely loved the original dev and support team from P21, dedicated and responsive is all I can say!