ECI M1

ECI M1 is an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution, providing total integration and automation of jobs from quoting through invoicing. M1 is a business system designed for small-to-medium manufacturers including job shops, custom, mixed-mode and make-to-order manufacturers. M1 is built with the objective to improve processes. This leads to savings in time, resources and money.

Video Overview

Essential Functions of M1

• Maintaining contact details for customers and suppliers
• Scheduling production to efficiently make use of resources
• Managing production jobs through job costing
• Controlling inventory of raw materials, finished goods and sub-assemblies
• Analyzing pre- and post-sales activities
• Ensuring quality and managing warranties

The implementation and customer service teams will have your M1 system up and running quickly. With dedicated professionals and locations throughout the United States, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Europe, ECI M1 will be with you every step of the way. Training and M1 customer service are always available to ensure you get the most from your ECI M1 ERP system.

Innovative Integration

Developed for Microsoft SQL Server with a Microsoft Outlook look and feel, M1 runs on Windows 7/8 and Windows Server 2003/2008/2012. This makes the software easy to learn, run and maintain, making it the most cost effective solution. It also integrates with your familiar everyday email and document tools Microsoft Word^®, Microsoft Outlook® and Microsoft MapPoint®. State-of-the-art navigation methods allow users to quickly find information.

Features & Design

The M1 Start Page features a fully configurable dashboard so that you can monitor pertinent parts of the business. All information is in real time. Powerful yet easy-to-use customization tools let you tailor M1 grids, forms and reports to your needs. The Mail Merge function allows you to merge M1 fields into any Mail Merge document. Send documents to multiple contacts at once, and include attachments from within any module. Quickly and easily transmit your advertising material to large groups of contacts and increase your marketing power.

Customization

With M1, you make the software work for you. Ensure your unique business processes are handled as you see fit. M1 does not force you to fit your business to the software. Additionally, all standard reports can be customized and new reports created using the industry standard Crystal Reports.

Advanced Planning and Scheduling

M1's Advanced Planning & Scheduling System (APS) provides amazing flexibility on the shop floor, while delivering unprecedented levels of scheduling accuracy and efficiency. Schedule your floor forward or backward, finite and infinite. Simple "drag and drop" features allow you to instantly reschedule jobs or make routing changes. Advanced finite/infinite scheduling feature allows you to quote jobs more accurately through custom job forecasting and "what-if" scheduling. Real time reporting enables you to respond instantly to customer demands and changes in the marketplace. With the most robust Advanced Planning & Scheduling system in the industry, M1 puts you in control of the entire production process and provides more control over your bottom line.

• Control the shop floor with backwards and forwards scheduling of individual or multiple jobs
• View available capacity to overload situations for each work center or department
• Reschedule multiple jobs with a single screen
• Define a work center by its crew size, number of machines, etc.
• Provide a detailed Planned Material Requirements report
• Automatically schedule all assemblies within a job to come together for final assembly

Contact Management and CRM

M1 CRM provides you with a complete 360-degree view of customer and vendor information and the tools necessary to cultivate those relationships. Efficiently manage complex relationships across partners, direct and indirect sales channels, distributors, retailers, and service providers. Leverage your competitive advantage and concentrate on growing your business using the powerful business analysis tools and interactive Executive Dashboards. The seamless interface with Microsoft® Office efficiently processes customer email, documents and data ensuring complete documentation at the customer record level. M1 CRM helps you to improve visibility into your valuable business data and use it to drive decision-making in real time!

• Document specific contact details for all customers and suppliers, including email and internet addresses
• Manage multiple related locations and individual contacts
• Create tasks and appointments by contact
• View product availability by quantity on hand, in production and on order for a selected part
• Link finance companies and/or resellers to a customer

Inventory Management

• Control raw materials, finished goods and sub-assemblies
• Ensure accurate stock records through automatic allocations, stock receipts and issues
• Obtain accurate stock valuations
• View future demands on your inventory
• Track standard, average and last costs for all parts
• View the method of manufacturing for any part

Job Management

Maximize your competitive advantages with real-time production data. Manage complex production jobs with multi-level BOMs. Capture true labor costs through bar-coded labor reporting. Retrieve job cost reporting in real-time and compare estimate to actual. Monitor each job as it progresses through the production process from planning to release to production complete. Leverage Key Performance Indicators, Data Inquiry Screens, Trend Viewers, Calendars and Reports to ensure jobs are on track and on budget.

• Automatically updates job costs with every job transaction
• Update raw material demands automatically with each job
• Compare estimated job costs to the actual costs as the job progress
• Manage complex production jobs with multi-level bills-of-materials

Labor Management

• Collect and control employees' labor hours
• Define shifts with start and end times, grace periods, and payroll information
• Record critical information relating to each employee
• Track employees to see who has clocked in
• View the jobs currently in operation on the shop floor without physically visiting the factory
• Integrates with M1's payroll module for a complete payroll function
• Verifies accuracy of timecards prior to payroll processing

Order Management

• Track all details and transactions relating to a specific order
• Create jobs for make-to-order items
• Improve on-time delivery performance by managing sales orders
• View multiple orders at once to plan production demands more efficiently
• Manage blanket orders by creating multiple releases for order details
• Automatically create backorders when partially completed orders are shipped
• E-mail order acknowledgements directly to customers

Product Configurator

M1's Product Configurator will allow you to offer superior service to your customers by simply and easily being able to configure products to their exact needs. Build custom screens that allow parts to be configured from Quoting, Order Entry, Job Entry and Lead Entry. Design entry screens to walk your staff or customer through the decision process to design and configure any product. Design anything from simple single-level BOMs to complex multilevel products using the powerful Product Configurator module. Not only does the M1 Product Configurator make internal quoting simple, but the seamless integration with the Web portal e-commerce module WebGear means your customers and distributors can configure their product 7 days a week 24 hours per day.

Purchasing Management

M1 Purchasing provides critical information and visibility of all purchasing requirements. It includes complete knowledge of what to buy, when to buy, and how much to buy from each supplier in a real-time environment. Purchasing Wizards will generate purchasing suggestions based on filters you select including supplier, part, job, date, or inventory class. Flexibility is key to "justin-time" inventory and M1 Purchasing enables you to buy directly to a job or directly into inventory for later use. Quickly identify service requirements as production orders are generated to ensure delivery dates are met. M1 Purchasing seamlessly integrates with multiple modules thereby eliminating duplicate entries.

• Purchase raw materials directly to the job
• Raise purchase orders for subcontract operations in a job
• Create manual purchase orders for miscellaneous items such as office supplies and services
• Add unplanned purchases directly to the job
• Track all outstanding orders, including backorders
• Measure and monitor delivery performance of suppliers

Quality/Warranty Management

M1 Quality Management will provide the tools necessary to monitor and maintain your quality standards and ensure your quality certifications. Inspect your incoming materials, in-process operations, and customer returns. To ensure parts under inspection, rework or claim are not used on a job, a quarantine bin holds the stock. Create, track, follow-up, verify and sign-off all corrective and preventative actions taken to address quality related issues. Customer and vendor returns are tracked through the financial system. Demonstrate the financial impact of your corrective actions using the trend analysis features. Perform cost/benefit analysis by tracking costs related to your quality management processes. M1's Quality Management solution provides you with an extensive suite of tools and capabilities necessary to cost-effectively manage quality issues while streamlining manufacturing and ERP operations and facilitating collaboration.

• Enter non-conformances to manage, control and analyze rework and scrap
• Manage the inspection process
• Quarantine parts under inspection
• Ensure recovery of costs on non-conforming material
• Process return authorizations and claims from customers
• Create, track, follow-up, verify and sign off on corrective and preventative actions
• Determine whether a claim is covered under warranty

Quoting and Estimating

Time is a valuable commodity and M1 Estimating & Quoting functionality allows you to be quick and responsive to your customer's request for quotation. Add materials to your quote without ever having to add them to your part master! Engineer parts on the fly or copy the bill of material (BOM) and routing from other parts, quotes or job templates. Attach drawings, certifications and specification sheets to provide production visibility to critical documents. Quickly review material estimates, subcontract services, overhead and labor requirements such as hours and rates. M1 will transfer all details directly from the quote to the production job order. M1 Estimating & Quoting functionality reduces the time and effort to quickly and effectively send quotes to your customers and provide superior customer service!

System Security

• Control user access to company information
• View a complete audit trail of changes
• View the change type, date, user and view details of what changed
• Specify the report and component security