M1 vs. ProShop ERP

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

Incentivized

For the most part I love everything about this system. The one thing that's a little confusing about it is the Carts system for creating purchase orders and batching them together. Seems to be a few extra steps to accomplish work that has essentially already been done. Other than that though, I love this system and highly recommend it!

• 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.

Incentivized

• Estimating
• Time Tracking
• Documentation
• Tracking Profitability

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• While support staff will be quick to help very advanced features still don't have all the documentation needed at times to solve problems on our own.
• Elements of the interface are could be polished for a more appealing aesthetic.

They continue to make the most affordable and complete ERP on the market for our company size and industry

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

It was built by people who ran a job shop and it shows

Support has been great and timely

Incentivized

Amazing support. Weather small bugs a large feature requests. ProShop's team is always there willing to help assist with any problems.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We had a custom-built Microsoft Access program before. While it did keep track of some information without a lifetime of development we could not expect it to do what ProShop does for us.

• Time savings having to only enter certain information once and have it follow through the entire order process from quote to cash

Incentivized

• ProShop has kept us organized reducing costs in expediting fees.
• ProShop has allowed us to stay one step ahead of the job to ensure on-time delivery.