Fast Growing Sustainable Power Storage Firm Taps OptiProERP

July 1st, 2022 by OptiProERP

Fast Growing Sustainable Power Storage Firm Taps OptiProERP

July 1st, 2022 by OptiProERP

EPC Power Chooses OptiProERP Over Other Providers for Its Manufacturing Functionality

Fast Growing Sustainable Power — EPC Power manufactures power conversion systems for electric vehicle charging stations, companies adopting solar power and renewable energy, and utilities, among others. Major multinational corporations brand-label their products and larger manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, use EPC’s products in their own manufacturing processes.

Irvine, CA – July 1, 2022 – EPC Power Corporation, North America’s largest energy storage inverter manufacturer, has chosen OptiProERP with SAP Business One to meet increased demand from customers adopting sustainable and green power options.

“OptiProERP provided a great deep dive, showing us every module, and every line item mapped to our processes.”
– Eli Aharon Ezer, ERP Project Manager, EPC Power Corp.

Based in Poway, CA, EPC Power will open its third manufacturing plant this year. In addition to existing operations in Poway and Finland, the company is expanding to South Carolina for an East Coast presence. The new facility will more than double manufacturing space for the power conversion systems it makes for electric vehicle charging stations, companies adopting solar power and renewable energy, and utilities, among others. Major multinational corporations brand-label its products and larger manufacturers, such as Lockheed Martin, use EPC Power’s products in their own manufacturing processes. EPC Power is well known for its inverters’ modular and scalable design, best-in-class response times, and certification by key North American and international industry standards. The company has extensive industry experience and a successful track record with its large and highly complex battery energy storage systems.

The fast-growing company is replacing its legacy ERP Odoo, which it installed in 2018, and which didn’t have the general functionality or manufacturing capabilities that the power system manufacturer needs, says Eli Aharon Ezer, lead project manager of the ERP implementation.

“Odoo is slow, lacked front end configurators, accounting traceability, and after-sales service, and its BOM controls were lacking,” he says. The company manipulated data outside of Odoo and used multiple spreadsheets, which wasted employees’ time and made it difficult to obtain critical data in real-time. For example, MRP is currently done on a spreadsheet, he says.

“Odoo was customizeable but it really limited us,” says Alisha King, the lead engineer on the project. “I tried to create several automations but they really slowed down the system. Employees often waited for 20 to 30 minutes for something to load, and that really hurt morale.”

EPC has grown tremendously since it first implemented Odoo, she adds. When she joined the company four years ago, there were fewer than 35 employees. Now EPC Power employs close to 200.

“We’ve grown a ton, but it takes tons of time trying to do something in Odoo,” King says. “For example, we had to hire another buyer just to be in charge of demand for the rest of the buyers; we’ve had to hire a few people to mitigate the Odoo time issue, and we’ve had to manipulate the data because Odoo couldn’t do it automatically.”

Other ERPs Lacked Manufacturing Functionality

EPC Power evaluated several ERPs including IQMS, Epicor, Acumatica, Global Shop Solutions, Oracle NetSuite, and Infor. “As we went through the evaluation stages and took deeper dives, many just didn’t have the functionality we needed,” Aharon Ezer said. “Oracle NetSuite paid more attention to accounting than manufacturing and management didn’t like the user interface.”

EPC Power chose OptiProERP with SAP Business One because “At the end of the day it had all the manufacturing functionality we wanted,” Aharon Ezer says. “OptiProERP provided a great deep dive, showing us every module, and every line item mapped to our processes. George Yankovich did a great job answering all of our questions, and made everyone feel comfortable that our processes could work in the system.”

Accurate Inventory, Improved Cost Accounting

Once implemented, Aharon Ezer and King look forward to improved cost accounting, more accurately reflected manufacturing costs, better inventory controls, and eliminating many of the manual entries made throughout the company.

“Frankly, I am looking forward to operating on a blank page,” Aharon Ezer says. “Our current system does not offer pretty data, and our processes can’t be completely defined. This is a chance for everyone who understands what an ERP can do, to put that into play.”

“We are also looking forward to restructuring our BOM and have a configurator so we can say we want the product to be this color or stainless steel and the BOM would be automated and generate work orders. We want everything to be streamlined without needing manual, intermittent steps,” he added.

For more information about EPC Power Corp, visit epcpower.com

About OptiProERP

OptiProERP is an industry-leading ERP solution for manufacturing and distribution. OptiProERP delivers best-in-class industry functionality embedded into SAP Business One, the market-leading business management platform for small and midsize enterprises. Customers gain an end-to-end business management solution, including financials, accounting, sales, CRM, and industry-specific functionality that fully leverages deep industry expertise of over 20 years dedicated to serving manufacturers and distributors.

OptiProERP is an eWorkplace Manufacturing solution. eWorkplace Manufacturing is SAP’s strategic industry partner for manufacturing and distribution and its first OEM partner as part of SAP’s global PartnerEdge Program. Serving manufacturers and distributors for over 20 years with OptiProERP and BatchMaster as its two ERP solutions, eWorkplace Manufacturing has gained the trust of over 3,000 customers globally.