Blog

ERP software is a strategic linchpin for manufacturing and distribution organizations. Employees interact with this mission-critical software every single day. The right ERP capabilities can play a key role in enabling a more agile, growth-oriented business. And a poorly managed system can directly hamper day-to-day efficiency, limit operational awareness, and even introduce critical risks to security and data integrity.

KBM ERP software continues to provide value to hundreds of manufacturers, but finding support for this legacy software is no longer easy.

In this blog, we look at how 3rd party support can help optimize your KBM implementation. A targeted optimization effort can enhance your ERP functionality and fix lingering issues while avoiding the cost and disruption of moving to a new ERP system.

JD Edwards enjoyed a longtime working relationship with IBM, resulting in many companies that rely on IBM i to run ERP solutions like JD Edwards World, OneWorld, and Enterprise One (with World running exclusively on IBM i).

In this blog, we discuss a report on the total cost of ownership (TCO) of IBM i and Power i servers. PSGi’s ground-level experience working with a variety of manufacturing and distribution companies across North America suggests that this IBM pairing can be extremely effective, generating substantial long-term ROI. This TCO report provides data to back our experience (and in the time since, IBM has confirmed that this ecosystem will be supported through at least 2032). 

“Competitive advantage cannot be understood by looking at a firm as a whole. It stems from the many discrete activities a firm performs in designing, producing, marketing, delivering, and supporting its product.” - Michael E. Porter, Harvard Business School Professor and originator of the Value Chain concept. 

In this blog, we take a look at Value Chain Management, a vital strategic concept for manufacturers today. 

Many IBM i-based systems have been successfully performing their business function for decades. Even though the Power i platform has a stable future through at least 2032, IT leaders sometimes assume that antiquation has come with age for this 30+-year-old product family. 

In our experience, this assumption is false. IBM i is not only a stable option that can continue performing well in support of business-critical systems but an inherently flexible system that can be readily integrated with a variety of new capabilities.

We often hear about the long term future of the Power i server as a source of worry for our clients. 

Businesses that rely on this platform should know that its long term future is officially secure: Power i and IBM i will continue to be supported by IBM for at least another decade (as we optimistically surmised back in 2016).

Businesses value the Power i running IBM i for its exceptional stability. From the hardware itself, to database-level architecture, the Power i offers a legendarily reliable platform. That’s precisely why so many organizations utilize it to run business-critical applications.

We have even heard an urban legend about a company that mistakenly plaster-walled off their Power i server during a construction project; they didn’t realize the mistake because the system continued performing flawlessly without much attention for years. But if this legend is true, they were very fortunate!

Remote monitoring is essential for ensuring the stability, reliability, and consistent performance of business-critical IT systems managed by a third-party provider. Attentive monitoring is the key to quickly resolving issues before they result in operational disruptions and minimizing the impact of disruptions if they do occur. In many cases, a smart monitoring approach can even automatically resolve routine issues using automated scripts.

In this blog, we break down some key considerations for organizations considering remote monitoring for applications and infrastructure.