Here is a comparison to another ERP . maybe that helps you.
I worked on other ERPs before BPCS, including several years with MAPICS.
Then we switched to BPCS, moved it to different version a few times, and are
now using BPCS 405 CD.
Prior to Y2K I studied what features were available on scores of ERP then in
the marketplace.
None could hold a candle to BPCS, in my opinion.
But the world changes. Open Source ERP has vastly advanced since those
days, for example.
Comparing BPCS to MAPICS (the versions I worked with, which are ancient by
modern standards)
Don't try to run your payroll through your ERP, if you have USA operations.
The IRS comes up with rule changes, telling companies maybe 3 months in
advance of deadline to implement them.
ERP companies deliver patches to satisfy IRS rule changes maybe 6 months to
a year after IRS deadlines.
Overall, BPCS is thousands of times superior to MAPICS, for the end users,
and for IT, with a few exceptions.
There are a tiny # of things MAPICS does, which BPCS does not.
MAPICS had a field in key files to show who was the last person to update a
customer order, and related topics.
This used to be important for us, because when we got data from customers,
anyone in customer service grabbed the data and entered it, but some
customers had screwed up systems for delivering order changes, and not
everyone was familiar with all the nuances . to make a long story short,
management changed our systems for handling customers, I think for the
better, so BPCS loss of that field ceased to be an issue.
Stability is an important issue for me.
BPCS is vastly more stable than MAPICS
What I mean by that is that frequently we have accidents . someone accessing
BPCS via a PC has a problem with the PC, or they press the red X of upper
right corner of Window screen. We are in a rural area, whose public
utilities would put a banana republic to shame. Almost every time a weather
front comes through, it brings power outages. We now have a UPS on the
AS/400, but not yet on individual PCs.
In the MAPICS era, when individual users access broke down in the middle of
some ap, there was a high risk of having to restore last backup, and
everyone re-do the work they did, since then. It was not unusual for us to
have to do this more than once a week.
With BPCS, when something crashes, we only have to deal with the order or
item or whatever the user was updating when their session ended abnormally,
except for shipping. There's a step where they select what customer they
going to ship, and it puts 100% of that customer's orders "in use" then they
select which orders to ship, and then ONLY then "in use" until they
finished. Anyhow, we often have the shipping PC lockup, or power cord get
kicked, or other oops, when 100% of customer "in use." Our recovery is to
get everyone off of customer orders, run a program which I wrote to get 100%
of orders NOT "in use," then let everyone back on customer orders. Takes 5
minutes. Another related problem is people have a broken session, say some
swear words, don't tell anyone, go back into running same ap off same work
session. So this means there may be some order or item messed up. I deal
with this by having some glitch detection reports I run in evening or
weekend, when everyone off the system, and have various fix-it tools if I
find any.
Vendor pricing is important to my managers.
BPCS vendor can raise prices at any time, you don't know in advance what
anything will cost.
If you change name of your company, owners of company, address of servers,
they may ding you full purchase price again.
There are other circumstances where there can be pricing surprises.
This is one reason we are on an ancient version of BPCS.
Documentation is poor, which comes with BPCS, compared to what comes with
MAPICS - you need to get 3rd party aids to be productive.
MAPICS had great documentation by comparison, except for coping with the
tangled mess of MAPICS file architecture.
BPCS Version 4 came with source code for free, later versions pay extra for
it, which complicates task of modifying.
Also some programs written in AS/Set which generates RPG etc. source code,
some of it unintelligible for modifying, if you did not have access to
AS/Set.
I liked the on-line documentation, but my co-workers were disgusted with
BPCS tech support.
We were never on the latest version.
There was a fax form to identify what version of platform and BPCS we on,
the nature of the problem.
BPCS vendor would assign someone not familiar with our platform or version,
tell us solution that only worked on a different one, take them a week to do
so, then we'd ask "But HOW do we do that on OUR platform / version?" and it
would take tech support a few more days to figure out that the solution
would not work for us, have to assign to someone familiar with our
combination, start over again. They did this every time, could not learn to
pay attention to what platform & version we on, which was in plain sight on
their standard fax form.
Documentation which could be helpful is a directory of known bugs, which no
one seriously expects BPCS vendor to fix, and how best to cope with them.
BPCS conversion tools from one version to the next, at least thru 405 CD,
royally sucks.
The bug density there far higher than in regular BPCS.
We had to use 3rd party tools to get a conversion which works.
BPCS materials are the intellectual property of the BPCS vendor.
You should apply directly to them for whatever copies they can give you.
For one of us to make available to anyone other than an employee of our own
companies is a no no.
You should specifically ask them for NET CHANGE documents.
These list what all they changed from one version to another, or one patch
bundle to another.
The content may be a bit geek to you if you are not familiar with any
version, but it is a good start for seeing what changed.
You might also ask here what are disadvantages of later versions vs. earlier
ones.
Not all changes are necessarily for the better.
Alister Wm Macintyre (Al Mac)
Linked In
https://www.linkedin.com/in/almacintyre
reminds me I hit 30 year anniversary with my day job
Aug 1984 - 2014
-----Original Message-----
From: BPCS-L [mailto:bpcs-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of chandrahasa
reddy
Sent: Friday, September 12, 2014 2:39 AM
To: bpcs-l
Subject: Re: [BPCS-L] Guidelines for BPCS-L mailing list
Hi All,
I am would like to know the advantages of BPCS version 8 (LX) over previous
version 6 & 4 and also would be great full if any of u can share the
overview of ERP LX in ppt format also BPCS materials.
Thanks in advance.
Regards
Chandra
midrange.com
