Enterprise-Strength Cloud ERP Fast-Tracks Business at Sites Across the Globe
Regardless of where in the world people work and live, one constant is the essential reliance on water. Marmon Water, part of Marmon Holdings, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, is a collective of companies dedicated to providing innovative solutions for clean, accessible water, and providing an array of residential, industrial and commercial water treatment solutions across the globe. With locations in 11 countries, the company needed a scalable, modern, and effective ERP system, as well as a true partner to deliver a comprehensive, worldwide solution.
Today, Epicor Kinetic deployed in the cloud is live at three Marmon Water companies, including one in Poland, and two companies in North America, and additional sites in India and the U.S. are in process. Furthermore, 12 more locations in Singapore and China, Europe, and the US are slated for implementation by end of 2026.
It’s no surprise that a business focused on innovation attracted and promoted an IT turnaround specialist. Jason Bjerke, Group Director, Information Technology at Marmon Water, started out as an IT Coordinator in 2007. In the ensuing years, he moved up the chain and today runs the IT team across Marmon Water. Managing ERP systems for 22 businesses across nearly a dozen countries falls under his purview.
When Bjerke arrived at EcoWater Systems, the business ran an outdated J.D. Edwards green-screen ERP system on an AS/400 server. One of his first responsibilities was to manage the switch to Epicor.
When you move to a public cloud, upgrades are seamless and automatic. No migrating data, no re-testing, no requiring of new licenses, no stress, no angst. We decided as a group to upgrade all our instances of Epicor in real-time. It’s been fantastic.
In 2015, Bjerke was appointed the project lead for upgrading EcoWater North America to Epicor. He recalled, “We were hosted by Epicor Managed Services and we were actually the first Marmon company to be fully cloud-based—that was a fundamental transformation.”
In addition, to become more efficient with upgrades, data migration and testing, Bjerke and his team began exploring Epicor Kinetic deployed on Microsoft Azure public cloud. He shared, “When you move to a public cloud, upgrades are seamless and automatic. No migrating data, no re-testing, no requiring of new licenses, no stress, and no angst. We decided as a group to upgrade all our instances of Epicor in real-time. In a nutshell, it’s been fantastic.”
Bjerke continued, “Another key advantage is that Epicor offers concurrent licenses. Because not everyone needs to be on the system 24x7, we have 70 licenses for EcoWater North America but may have 120 people actually using the system. It’s the same in Poland and at KX Technologies.”
Bjerke is justifiably proud of his teams’ implementation track record, one that he describes as, “On-time, on-budget, and simplified with no business disruption. Every single time the Epicor solution has been successful: shipping on day one, receiving on day one, and invoicing on day one.”
It’s the result of a disciplined, proven approach. “We have taken lessons learned and developed a very streamlined implementation practice” he explained. “Epicor Professional Services did the majority of the training and ensuring that the software was configured for each site. And at the group level, we have defined a very methodical process, using five conference room pilots and a mock go-live at month-end.”
“In addition, the Epicor Professional Services team is familiar with our businesses and our procedures, so we benefit from that experience each time. We don’t have to retrain; the learning is carried forward,” Bjerke added.
The core of our success can be ultimately traced back to a committed and durable foundation. Bjerke clarified, “The core of our success with Epicor is that we have a true ‘give and take’ partnership. We work together and are invested in each other, sitting side by side when needed to find answers and stay on point.”
Currently, Bjerke has approximately 200 users on Epicor Kinetic and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “The primary benefit we've heard over and over is the increase in speed. It is noticeably quicker to be on the public cloud and it’s even faster using the web version. In fact, we are discontinuing use of the client version and only moving forward with the web version of Epicor Kinetic,” elaborated Bjerke.
As an example of accelerated business processes, Bjerke cited an EcoWater director who observed that reports previously taking 10 to 15 minutes to generate are now being produced in just a few minutes. Bjerke acknowledged, “It’s a noticeable difference and not just among our IT people. Everyone who is using it commented that latency and speed were greatly enhanced with the upgrade.”
The primary benefit we've heard over and over is the increase in speed. It is noticeably quicker to be on the public cloud and it’s even faster using the web version. In fact, we are discontinuing use of the client version and only moving forward with the web version of Epicor Kinetic.
Furthermore, Bjerke appreciates the seamless integration with other modules which further speeds tasks, such as Epicor Advanced MES for cycle counting and Epicor EDI. He highlighted, “It’s important because most of our customers use EDI. For instance, EcoWater is a $200 million company and 80 to 90% of revenue comes through EDI. Poland will be transitioning to EDI in the near future, and we are working on quickly bringing our vendors on board too.”
He also cited international shipments as an example of greater efficiencies. Previously, it would take the shipping team nearly an hour to complete paperwork for shipments going overseas. Using Epicor Quick Ship integrated with Epicor Kinetic, staff simply click international shipping, select the appropriate documents, and hit print. “It went from one hour to five minutes, it’s done,” summed up Bjerke.
Timely data is the true game-changer, and Bjerke values what Epicor Kinetic helps to offer today and for the future. “Epicor provides a wide range of dashboards and they have definitely provided a massive step forward in terms of data needed to make sound business decisions,” he stated. We now have the ability to see Open Orders, Inventory Levels and Turns, Shipment Backlog, Orders not Invoiced, Open RMAs, and a variety of Sales Reports - all in dashboards. These dashboards help us to make timely decisions on production, quality, and inventory - just to name a few.
“We are especially excited about the Grow BI acquisition because the no-code, full-stack business intelligence platform will enable us to make better, faster decisions based on actionable insights,” Bjerke shared. “Moreover, using Grow BI means we don’t have to run a separate instance of Epicor, thereby giving us a real-time look into Epicor Kinetic and a better understanding our business.”
Word of the power of Epicor Kinetic is getting out. Bjerke concluded, “Teams from other Marmon businesses who aren’t happy with their systems see what we are doing with Epicor, are reaching out to see how it might benefit them. It’s definitely an expanding relationship.”