Eagle Consulting Goes With An ERP 'Underdog'

Eagle Consulting and Development demonstrates that other approaches can work just as well. With $15 million in revenue, Eagle's core product works with QAD Inc.'s enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. Although QAD is not as well-known as SAP or Oracle, Eagle has successfully leveraged QAD's strong presence in manufacturing to sell hundreds of customers its radio frequency (RF)-based data collection software, which captures critical manufacturing data in real time and conveys it to QAD's MFG/PRO software.

The company's strategy is clearly working. After business dipped in the immediate wake of Sept. 11, 2001, Eagle finished 2002 in strong shape, with revenue growing in the 20 percent range for the year. That was slightly off of previous years, but a strong showing nonetheless, particularly when considered in the context of the troubles suffered by the enterprise software sector more broadly.

Eagle's work with QAD dates back to the mid-1980s, when it selected QAD over bigger, better-known vendors. "When we started really drilling down, they had the best-of-breed product; their depth of functionality and the time to implement their software was by far superior," says Bill Paone, executive vice president of marketing and sales for Eagle.

QAD's product functionality was more complete in areas including inventory management, manufacturing, capacity planning, scheduling and distribution, Paone adds. Data from QAD's system helps manufacturers maximize their ability to track inventory accurately, eliminate errors and minimize inventory costs.

Vertical Focus

Solution providers looking to compete in the ERP or enterprise software space are wise to build and market vertical-industry expertise. The problems that the end customer is trying to solve ultimately are vertical industry-specific, and can't just be addressed by technology generically, says Brian Zrimsek, research director for Gartner. "They need to understand the business issues of a certain vertical market, to be more of a business advisor than a software salesman," Zrimsek says, adding that this focus is superior to organizing and going to market along geographic lines.

Eagle customers say the company's software benefits from its tight integration with QAD, an outgrowth of Eagle's singular focus on MFG/PRO. "One of the things we were looking for was an integrated solution with real-time data entry, to be able to eliminate our data backlog," says Stella Likhterman, information systems director for Thibiant International, a Chatsworth, Calif.-based manufacturer of private-label hair and skin care products. "Eagle was the primary provider and, to my knowledge, there are no other real-time systems today as integrated with MFG PRO."

Although Eagle doesn't resell QAD software, it does sell Intermec hand-held computers and Zebra Technologies bar-code printers. A typical Eagle installation costs $75,000 for the company's software, $30,000 for consulting and $150,000 for hardware.

QAD primarily targets companies with $500 million to $2 billion in revenue in four vertical industries: automotive, industrial electronics, medical devices, and consumer packaged goods/food and beverage. Eagle is organized along those same verticals so the two companies together bring strong depth of industry-specific expertise into the customer accounts they serve jointly.

A common application of Eagle and QAD products works like this: A person working on a factory floor totes an Intermec handheld computer, for which Eagle has written software drivers or "execution code." The system can be used, for example, to capture data relating to materials as they are received and move through the manufacturing process, as well as on finished goods. Eagle's system scans and prints bar codes. Once data is captured or entered into the Intermec computer, it's transmitted to MFG/PRO. Data traverses a wireless LAN on the factory floor and is bridged to the wired LAN--on which MFG/PRO resides--through a wireless LAN access point.

Thibiant has used the Eagle system to improve the speed with which data can be entered into its QAD system. In one critical application, the company is using RF Express to speed reconciliation of information contained in work orders. In the past, data such as quantity information on materials or finished products wasn't entered into MFG/PRO in real time. With RF Express, "Validation happens in real time, not with data entry people but with people who make the product and move the product," Likhterman says.

Likhterman declined to assign any specific cost benefit to the Eagle system, but did say a 2 percent increase in inventory accuracy would pay for the system. She also credits RF Express as being instrumental in helping the company eliminate two data-entry positions and reassign the employees involved.