Infor has announced that the Preserved Food Speciality Co Ltd (PFS) in Thailand has selected and is deploying Infor M3 as its new ERP solution.
Background
Founded in 1994 PFS produces both preserved foods and consumer packaging. It uses techniques such as freezing, freeze drying, spray drying and drum drying to create products. While its main market is Thailand it also ships to countries across Asia, the Middle East, the United States and Europe. Over the last 23 years it has grown to 900 employees. Prior to deploying Infor M3 had several standalone, point and specialist solutions.
Those solutions had also become harder to manage. PFS needed a core solution that would replace some solutions and integrate to the others. They also needed to increase the efficiency of their operations in the face of growing competition. Mr. Worapars Mahattanobol, Managing Director, Preserved Food Specialty commented: “Our business is increasingly facing fierce competition; we need to enhance our technology to meet fast-changing user demands — both internally and externally — for new levels of speed, efficiency, and customer service. Having deployed Infor M3, we are convinced it is most suitable to address our business needs.”
Partner key to decision
While PFS had selected Infor M3 they also needed to find a partner that would support them through the implementation and beyond. They selected Lawson Software (Thailand) Co Ltd, an established Infor partner specialising in food and beverage. They have previously implemented Infor M3 at VPP Progressive Co Ltd, a coffee roasting company.
PFS chose Infor M3 Manufacturing for its ability to manage mixed mode and complex environments. The delivers the flexibility that PFS requires. An example is making it easy to adjust the production schedule at any time in response to changing customer demand.
Implemented across the organisation
Infor M3 supports production, warehouse, purchase support, accounting, and marketing at PFS. Mahattanobol added: “Infor M3 works beautifully to manage a sophisticated array of services and operations related to food manufacturing, affirming Infor’s deep understanding of our industry.”
This is a new install not an upgrade by PFS from a previous version of Infor M3 or another Infor solution There is no mention of the Infor Xi platform being used. However, if PFS wants to integrate some of its older solutions it is likely they will use Infor Ion to do so. The middleware software allows different systems, Infor and non Infor to integrate with one another. While Mahattanobol commented that the solution was “deployed” it seems likely that this has been a phased deployment. The press release states that the project will go fully live in June 2017.
Conclusion
The announcement is welcome news for Infor as it seeks to expand its footprint internationally. This is the first time that PFS has used Infor software and it was won in a competitive tender. Legacy ERP vendors comment about winning competitive tenders, but rarely note whether they were the incumbent. In this case Infor weren’t which adds value to the win.
Helen Masters, Vice President & Managing Director, South Asia – ANZ & ASEAN, Infor commented: “We are delighted to partner with PFS and in having Infor M3 play a key role in the company’s ongoing business transformation. We are also excited to see how Infor M3 is helping PFS meet profitability goals, by managing customers, logistics, finance, and manufacturing on a single platform, offering holistic insights that speed-up decision-making on and outside the factory floor.”
