Infor Touts System21 Flex Upgrade at Novum

June 22, 2010 Alex Woodie

Novum, the Irish manufacturer of refrigeration systems, has upgraded its i/OS-based System21 installation as part of the Flex Upgrade program offered by Infor, the software vendor announced recently.

The upgrade from System21 version 3 to Infor ERP System21 Aurora helped across many areas of Novum’s business, including customer order fulfillment processes, order-to-cash cycle times, and reporting and decision-making across the company, says Infor, which estimates its customer will recoup its investment within a year. The company also upgraded to an IBM System i model 520 at the same time.

“Phase one of the System21 Aurora deployment is complete and already there are immediate benefits,” stated Novum CFO Robert Gibney in a press release. “We have begun a process of reducing the overall life cycle of our product process from order to sale. We hope within 12 months to have reduced this by 35 percent. Already we are on track.”

Novum executed the System21 upgrade under Flex, the ERP upgrade and migration program that Infor unveiled last year. As part of the Flex offer, Infor committed to keeping any upgrade- or migration-related fees to a minimum as an incentive to get its customers to upgrade to the latest service oriented architecture (SOA)-enabled releases of ERP products.

While there are hurdles to upgrading–namely, the extensive customization that companies made to their ERP systems–customers often benefit from the functionality developed in newer software, and find ways to drive efficiencies during the upgrade process. Infor, in turn, makes its software maintenance job easier because there are fewer customers running older products.