Users on IQMS: not your typical ERP company
by Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 7/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
Enterprise vendor IQMS is a throwback to a bygone era—a time when it wasn't unusual for a software company president to double as lead programmer.
If IQMS continues to grow at its current pace, however, the days of Randy Flam, company president and lead programmer, walking customers through the details of the latest product upgrades at the annual user conference may be numbered. What's less likely to change is IQMS' strategy of writing all of its own applications—from human resources to warehouse management—rather than buying technology from other vendors.
"It takes more effort to hook into other systems than to work within the boundaries of your own system," Flam said when telling attendees at IQMS' user conference, held in April in Las Vegas, why IQMS developed its own EDI module.
The EDI package is one of several recent additions to the IQMS Enterprise IQ ERP suite. A PLM module was unveiled at the user conference, along with plans for new Web-based CRM functionality and employee portals.
Terry Cline, a company VP, says constantly developing new capabilities is part of IQMS' mission to give customers "a single source" for all the technology they need to support their businesses. And it appears the idea resonates within IQMS' target market of primarily small manufacturers.
Of the companies currently using Enterprise IQ, 94 percent report revenues in the $5-million to $75-million range. According to Cline, these manufacturers, which represent a cross section of vertical industries, have been snapping up the system lately, propelling privately owned IQMS to its "strongest year ever [with 20 percent sales growth] in 2004."
Chris Jones, a senior VP with Boston-based Aberdeen Group, says recent survey data reveals IQMS customers have more confidence than most ERP users that the vendor will continue meeting their needs in the future.
New Berlin Plastics—a New Berlin, Wis.-based injection molder of precision parts for the medical, water treatment, transportation, and consumer markets—is representative of the companies buying Enterprise IQ.
"The idea of dealing with a single vendor was very appealing to us," says Jeffery Held, president and CEO of New Berlin Plastics, which installed Enterprise IQ last August. Held adds that Enterprise IQ is making New Berlin more efficient. For instance, he says, having a data collection system integrated with the rest of the suite makes it much easier to manage shop-floor operations.
"Previously we were entering data in two separate systems," Held says. "Now it's scanned once. That has improved our overall efficiency by giving us better visibility of what we are making and what we need to make. We also are benefiting from online scheduling integrated with production monitoring. We are putting out a lot less fires."
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