Plex
Facilitating Effective ERP Management for Multi-site Manufacturers

Since its inception, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems have been popular amongst decision makers as they are aware of what a successful ERP implementation could do to their businesses. However, implementation and upgradation have always been a problem with ERP solutions, especially, for the manufacturing industry, given the fact it was immune to IT integration until some years ago. “ERP software from Plex takes a different approach as new features are added daily to a single line of code, giving renewed value daily to our customers,” says Jason Blessing, CEO, Plex.
Plex was formed in 2001, when the founders were constantly forestalled with inaccurate inventory and machine breakdowns. Starting with the automotive metal forming industry, the company expanded its operation base to other discrete manufacturers especially concentrating on food and beverage industry. Currently, Plex monitors 1300 production sites owned by 400 companies spread across 20 countries. “We built Plex walking between the shop floor and the boardrooms, figuring out what we needed to track, measure, automate, and then update the software. This model of continuous innovation still serves as the foundation of Plex solutions today,” says Jerry Foster, CTO, Plex.

Plex’s flagship solution, Plex Manufacturing Cloud—a single unified platform, helps manage manufacturing operations with impeccable agile performance. The solution keeps its clients abreast with leading edge trends through its built-in broad and deep set of functionalities. The solution provides industry-wide visibility from suppliers, materials to people and machines and further onto customers. “Plex is built to work in the manufacturing environment, so we make sure it’s easy to use and available on any device—whether a laptop, a CNC machine or a scanner for a hi-logic operator,” says Blessing.

There are plenty of reasons why multitudes of manufacturers choose Plex as their ERP vendor. The primary reason being the lower cost of ownership and the implementation, itself. “We can turn on a new customer account, a new plant or new functionality instantly with no setup cost.

There’s no overhead for buying and installing hardware, storage, middleware, database software or servers,” explains Blessing. Being a cloud SaaS, there are no separate costs of installing, maintaining and upgrading, either. “Plex grows as businesses grow, without the need for new equipments,” adds Blessing.

ERP solutions are usually updated once a year at the most; Plex on the other hand does that on a daily basis owing to its delivery method. In addition, Plex’s allows flexibility to its clients to activate newer features with their consent, at their own time. Although, right from the executive to the personnel on the shop-floor has access to Plex’s system, hierarchical relationships can be defined across the chain of personnel with the option of limiting access at individual or group levels for complete security and audit trail reporting.

The company has a large clientele base of 400 organizations. One of Plex’s clients-Shape Corporation, an OEM of car bumpers chose Plex as their ERP vendor after evaluating 15 other solution providers. Plex impressed them with its unique capability of ensuring all departments- from shop floor operations, supply chain management to finance and HR to be serviced in one integrated platform. In addition, Plex Manufacturing Cloud’s real-time visibility, automated reporting, sales forecasting, production efficiency, and labor management was also a determining factor.

ERP software from Plex takes a different approach as new features are added daily to a single line of code, giving renewed value daily to our customers

For the coming years, Plex’s innovation drive will be concentrated on their cloud SaaS platform, with the aim of providing more clarity to businesses about their day-to-day operations and their holistic impact.