SALEM — Managing advanced companies and provide chains is a course of fraught with potential pitfalls and human error, says Abisha Stone with the Salem-based Strategic Financial Improvement Corp., or SEDCOR.
For instance, a grass seed or hazelnut farm within the Willamette Valley may need to schedule functions of fertilizer and pesticides in the course of the rising season; rent labor for harvest; course of and type seeds and nuts after harvest; and match warehouse stock and buy orders for delivery.
“Many (firms), in my expertise, are doing all these capabilities in Excel paperwork,” mentioned Stone, Yamhill County financial improvement director for SEDCOR. “To have totally different folks somewhere else in your enterprise, doing separate documentation and making an attempt to drag that collectively. … There’s alternative for them to make vital errors.”
Enterprise Useful resource Planning software program, or ERP, is one device that may assist, Stone mentioned.
The software program programs, usually custom-built by builders, mix totally different “modules” that combine all of a enterprise’ inside and exterior sources beneath one program — together with property, cashflow, buying, stock and payroll.
The issue, Stone mentioned, is small and mid-size companies usually can’t afford the tens of 1000’s of {dollars} monthly it takes to purchase and host ERP software program, placing them at a aggressive drawback.
“There simply tends to be a way more advanced, sophisticated and time-exhaustive course of for capturing all that information and sharing it with each other,” Stone mentioned. “For small companies, even simply managing the procurement and scheduling is a big juggling act.”
Buildable, a software program firm in McMinnville, Ore., is now working with SEDCOR and different native financial improvement teams to create an open-source ERP platform, known as OregonERP, permitting smaller companies to capitalize on the know-how.
Open-source software program, versus proprietary software program, signifies that anybody with the supply code can entry and modify this system.
In December, Enterprise Oregon awarded a $211,250 grant to complete the ultimate two phases of improvement, together with implementation and advertising. Stone mentioned the modules for OregonERP needs to be examined and accomplished by the tip of September.
“It truly is a real game-changer for small to mid-size companies to have entry to programs like this, that they will really afford,” she mentioned.
In response to SEDCOR, Oregon has roughly 6,200 manufacturing companies — together with value-added farms and meals processors — that make use of greater than 200,000 folks, making up 21% of the entire worth of products produced throughout the state.
Of these, 5,000 producers, or roughly 80% of the state’s complete, make use of 20 folks or fewer.
Whereas typical ERPs might price between $75,000 to $750,000 a yr, OregonERP will price shoppers lower than $12,000. And for the reason that software program is open supply, it may be simply personalized.
“We consider all producers, no matter their measurement, ought to have entry to a device that helps them perceive all of their prices so that they enter the market on the proper value,” Stone mentioned.
Different companions within the venture embrace the Oregon Manufacturing Extension Partnership and McMinnville Financial Improvement Partnership.
“This can have a extremely significant influence on the manufacturing group, not solely in Yamhill County however throughout the state,” mentioned Scott Cooper, government director of the MEDP.
