Infor VISUAL is an ERP software focused on manufacturing companies with business intelligence, planning and scheduling, and pricing, quoting, and estimating capabilities, among others.
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M1
Score 7.1 out of 10
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M1, from ECI Software Solutions headquartered in Ft. Worth, is an all-in-one manufacturing ERP software solution, built for small and medium-sized discrete manufacturers.
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Pricing
Infor VISUAL
M1
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Infor VISUAL
M1
Free Trial
No
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Infor VISUAL
M1
Considered Both Products
Infor VISUAL
Verified User
Anonymous
Chose Infor VISUAL
Based on use cases and implementation. Scaling and scheduling meet CTO and ETO.
We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it …
SAP Business One was selected for the China Division for cost and ease of training reasons. It does not have the capabilities required for the main office accounting or product engineering. It also was not available at the time of Visual Manufacturing selection. Epicor Eclipse …
In Vendor/Application Selection INFOR ERP rated high in Production Capability and Shop Floor Management. INFOR ERP was weaker in financials. INFOR ERP appears to be strong for retail and order (pick/pack/ship) fulfillment operations. INFOR ERP Management offered aggressive …
We replaced Open Systems with M1 7 years ago. Our Open Systems software seemed to be more user-friendly and was not overburdened by reports and processes that were not needed for daily functions.
M1 is light years ahead in overall cost and proficiency. It allows so much more control and flexibility as compared to its competitors. When choosing M1 we went through many demos and M1 was the only ERP that met our needs and still does. We also control our own data which is a …
M1 is better with the manufacturing side of software whereas Sage 100 is better at the financial side. Which is frustrating that M1 implementation people are not accountants, so they got us up and running but did not do a good job of making sure the GL accounts were setup …
Our customization requirements were not that high and based on a price/cost benefit M1 was the winner. SAP was considered but the upfront costs and challenging learning curve together with the lack of flexibility in the SAP HANA public cloud version made the M1 choice more …
M1 does a good job of being able to handle our requirements. Some of our assemblies and sub-assemblies require a significant amount of detail and different levels in order to complete - and M1 handles that. Some of the other products I've used, or implemented else where fall …
The original version of Visual Manufacturing (Lilly Software) was intended for mechanical manufacturing. It was adapted at our facility (we were not the first) to accomodate electronic manufacturing. For electronic manufacturing process control it is not ideal when referencing in-line or custom processes used to build product. For material control it is excellent unless a modification to a standard product is required (and we did this on 60% of product going out the door). The co-product feature that removes material from an assembly requires the creator of the work order to calculate the percentage of cost the removed items are from the completed product. On the business operations side regional tax reports were difficult to extract and an external module to go into the data base and extract that had to be created. The system itself was stable for the most part. Occasional "data collisions" corrupted transactions at times. The accounting procedures in place found them by the end of the month .where they were corrected. For a small business with less formal processes Infor Visual can be used with little training for the operators. If the processes need a higher level of accountability and control the processes can be formalized with workflow scripts to ensure that higher level of control.
Implementation is by far the weakest link in the ECI/M1 process. Although the tool is powerful, the client is expected to drive the process of learning the tool, planning the meetings with consultants, identifying risks and making mitigation plans, etc. without any samples, guidance or assistance on the part of ECI. The tool is best suited to high volume, standard product manufacturers who build to inventory or to order without much variation. The shop floor routing and time tracking are straightforward if you can master the convoluted Unit Of Measure calculations. The tool is either hosted locally or accessed through Remote Desktop. Shop floor is web enabled but the main desktop for M1 is still a relay which makes connectivity a potential issue. Moving this platform to a truly web hosted environment would substantially improve connectivity and eliminate compatibility issues with Apple products
Manage inventory counts. Good precision on quantities in and out, through shipping, MI, MR, and receipts.
Job costing shows great details on labor, operations, and materials to be used. I wished that would do better in outside operations that would return, but we still think it is great.
Ability to track changes (changelog), showing all changes that had in a particular place. Such as where, when, and by whom a line item unit price was changed in a PO.
Link, traceability, keeping history. If done correctly, it is amazing to keep the history of a part/lot.
The amount of user rights/customization is unbelievable. It can be hard to set up in the beginning, but it is great that you can give some very specific access to a user, and it is not (in general) as a package.
At times a "shadow part" is necessary in the manufacturing process. This shadow part does not require an inventory transaction but is made a as a separate process - sometimes out of sequence to the general process flow. Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 does not have that capability.
When generating forms for business and manufacturing operations Infor Visual ver 6.3.5 has a limited number of options. To change or add forms requires an unsupported editor. When the stock and custom options are depleted an outside programming module is required as well as programmers to develop the forms.
While free software upgrades to the main operations modules have been part of the maintenance agreement. One upgrade required database and hardware support not justifiable for the current business model. The system was frozen at the current version at that time.
There is no easy way to differentiate between engineering documentation and production documentation.
Some of the functions are pretty detailed - and so they take a while to generate screens and pages in reports.
We actually use it for 2 companies we own - and it would be nice if the inter company communication was a little smoother. It's hard to share some data, and not everything is possible to be shared.
Customized reports need to backed up before any updates to M1 or they're lost. It seems M1 overwrites the report folders everytime you run an update - so you have to keep track of what you've changed in Crystal Reports and restore it.
Good Technical and Customer Support during and after implementation tasks. Good Project Plan and Management support for implementation and post implementation. Financial functionality could be more comprehensive particularly with Budgeting and Cash Management. Inventory Management capability was adequate but could be more comprehensive as well. "Out of the Box" functionality was adequate but requested add-ons and enhancements seemed to be a bit pricey.
Because it would be helpful if ECI would provide better documentation, communication and workflows to understand how each field interacts within the system and how each of those touch other areas within M1. It would also be useful if ECI would provide prescheduled training for how to customize things with M1 through Design Studio
Could have used more hands-on approach. There are multiple webinars and information sessions but until you actually use the system, these are not very helpful.
We unfortunately did not evaluate any other ERP software. VISUAL was a legacy system and we determined that changing systems would be too difficult, and not cost effective. We reached out to our local VISUAL rep who knew how the software functioned, but not how to apply it more appropriately to our business model, so we continued on with what we had rather than looking elsewhere.
Our customization requirements were not that high and based on a price/cost benefit M1 was the winner. SAP was considered but the upfront costs and challenging learning curve together with the lack of flexibility in the SAP HANA public cloud version made the M1 choice more natural. SAP Services is usually more expensive compared to M1.
