Other than MES, I can see things like requisitions processing, PO approvals, tasks from the Task List, Time and Expense entry (from technicians or sales reps in the field), executive analysis (daily sales, shipments, A/R summary, A/P summary, open Non-Conformances, …) very useful on a phone or tablet.
I still think both EVA and Social are good ideas.
EVA lives in the “bring information to where people are” world, which is not the way ERP developers think. We want users to come to the ERP UI. For accessibility alone, EVA is a good idea.
And Social…well, for a collaborative product, it really wasn’t. There was a desire to lock people into it and not easily share outside of ERP. To some extent, Collaborate has double downed on this productization scheme. It’s too much of a stand-alone product and will never gain broad use if it remains that way. Nobody is asking, but in my opinion Collaborate should have started by combining the built-in features of notification already in ERP. For example, the balloon messages in the System Monitor in the tray should display in the feed like when tasks completed/failed - including when a report had zero records!!! And instead of adding to the cesspool that is email notification, BPM and shop notifications should also show up in the feed. That basic capability should come with the base version of Collaborate.
The next level of productization would be the messaging. Here’s where the subscription would come in. If you want to share with the outside world, then you’d need connectors for Teams, Slack, or the version of Collaborate for users who use neither. This capability provides extra value that should definitely be paid for. But again, don’t make users come to Collaborate or ERP to use it. Make it available to where people are. Stop the lock-in that sank Social (IMHO) and put collaboration back into the product. Implemented and sold correctly, this could be a very successful product.
Likewise, I think they are good ideas. However the Industry seems not to care or be ready for it. I just received not too long odd news that a billion dollar RV manufacturer dropped Epicor to return back to AS400, there is something about MS-DOS and MRP running 25x faster on a Disk Drive. Point being, I think Epicor is headed in the right direction – but if we started to ask the Customer, they would drag Epicor back into 1985.
What do you really want Mr. Customer? I just want MRP to email me when it crashes, above all, above Kinetic… really? Small minded eh?
Doesn’t have to be that way. You use your native app as a container, with possibly some hooks for extra functionality.
You separate the backend(UI not data) into a full and mobile mode with full customization options.
It doesn’t even have to be really separate, just have flags for put this here for mobile, put this here for full experience etc.
These are spot on great ideas. But again. I am not sure how they work in your company… Most people get a cubicle and most people get a Desktop, that is it. They do not get paid to use their Personal Phone for company resources.
Manufacturers are old school. Its simple, you should be at your desk pulling up those reports like we did for 50yrs, heck even PRINT them out and bring them to the meeting, aint got no time for paperless.
Thats your Average Manufacturing Plant.
GREAT IDEAS, AGREE 100%… But maybe the issue are the “Baby Boomers stifling innovation” (sorry guys)
We are all fighting for WFH and they are fighting back. WTF. I had to fight to wear earbuds at work, its that old school. I was a developer! I was not allowed to wear a headset, because the phone could ring, and I wouldnt hear it possibly
Completely agree. And I would add a backend-for-frontend (BFF) for the various front ends. This would add a layer of security and add capabilities like shaping and caching for performance.
Mark I just want to say this. You and I see eye to eye, BUT often times I simply convey “what the current landscape is” and it comes across as if I am against all these new trends. I really am not, it is that the people who have paid me (various of them) for the past 15yrs are against all things good. So I always rant about “Why are we doing X, when everyone just wants Windows Mobile 6.0 to scale properly.” It is mainly because most of us work for lower tier suppliers. Maybe if we worked for F1, Mercedes, General Electric, or Healthcare it would be way ahead towards IoT 4.0.
Good Discussion, love your feedback as always.
PS: Not sure if you saw this, but Mercedes even has IoT built into their Screwdrivers! Amazing! Even their own Internet in the plant.
We certainly do, but you are a far superior software engineer than I will ever be!
And yes, it is very, very difficult to bring modern software engineering practices to the manufacturing space! I’d be happy getting people to do transactions as close to real-time as possible before using a Bluetooth screwdriver!
Bet it does, but in my head it means the companies are expecting something with POS responsiveness not something with Smarts/Pretty UI, many of our big retailers over here run the “dos screen” stuff, responsiveness is near enough to instant compared to the spinning blue circle.
I’ve never used Kinetic, but isn’t there the ability to serve up different forms based on the client?
Every http requests info about the client (OS, browser, etc…), which would allow dynamic layouts. Which would be better than trying to just have the HTML elements “flow” in a way that works for desktop as well as mobile.
Heck, my wife (practically computer illiterate) made her own website with WIX and then Squarespace, and each of those automatically create a version for browsers on mobile platforms.
And does kinetic allow customizations for events that exist in mobile but not in desktop(I.e. Touch events)?
And that’s the thing. Clean architecture and separation of concerns lead to simplicity. It’s when we add complicated business logic (or insecure work-arounds) to our UI is when we lose simplicity.
Yes, I have run Kinetic on an iPad. Some desktops (mostly laptops) also have touch sensitive screens. These have been click events. I don’t think there are any multitouch events like pinch, etc., but I’ve haven’t tried yet.
After being trapped a few times by poor developers overriding the default zoom with pinch and having to close out of an app or web page, I’m hoping they don’t touch it.
Yes, the plan is to create various screen versions for the browser for different sized screens. while you CAN run Kinetic from an Iphone, it is not optimal. It will resize and dynamically change the layout, but for complicated forms such as Order Entry, it is a lot to ask of a user to try to use it.
personally, I see that we could have various smaller screens for small transactional apps… maybe something special for approvals, or issues/receipts, etc. I am sure that there is more to come on this.
After being trapped a few times by poor developers overriding the default zoom with pinch and having to close out of an app or web page, I’m hoping they don’t touch it.