LAS VEGAS – NFL Hall of Famer Deion Sanders addressed thousands at the Epicor Insights 2025 customer conference, stating, “If you ain’t adding, you’re subtracting.”
Building on Sanders’ advice to constantly add value, Epicor’s event emphasized making business decisions based on data rather than opinions.
As a trade war threatens to disrupt the supply chain and artificial intelligence enters the picture, manufacturers and distributors are forced to adopt new ERP best practices to stay competitive. One major shift among Epicor’s customers has been prioritizing data cleansing.
“Those initial customers that used ERP and implemented it are now retiring,” Epicor Director of Product Management Jen Triftshauser said. “So the workforce is leaving the company, and the younger generation that’s coming in doesn’t know all that tribal knowledge. So [companies] are doing a better job of writing down what they’re doing, when they do it, how they do it.”
Epicor repeatedly pointed to Prism, the company’s newly released AI-powered conversational ERP designed to support supply chain industries. Integrated into users’ existing Epicor ERP platforms, Prism offers a network of vertical AI agents that can respond to requests and streamline operations.
Still, manufacturers and distributors early in their AI journeys often face challenges as they learn what approaches best suit them.
“When you all of a sudden make an ERP conversational, if you have data discrepancies, data duplication issues or something in your processes, it gets exposed fairly quickly, which actually is a good thing,” Epicor Chief Innovation Officer Arturo Buzzalino said. “Because you’ll start seeing answers that maybe don’t make sense. It’s easy to not want to check the work of the AI and say, ‘I’ll just take it for face value,’ and move on.”
The need for clarity extends to a company’s entire operations, including a shop floor, where real-time operational data becomes critical as AI tools reveal inconsistencies.
Mark Wonsil, a business systems analyst for plastics manufacturer and Epicor customer PTI Engineered Plastics, recounted a situation where his company began using a standalone manufacturing execution system (MES) that came with its molding machines.
The system gathered raw data, but it could not provide broader context like schedules, parts information or production methods.
“Then we added advanced MES a couple of years ago, and we’ve been using that for about a year,” Wonsil said. “It’s so much nicer to see a real-time display. When is this job going to be done? How can I schedule stuff? When you want to schedule what’s going on in the floor, the advanced MES has really come in handy to help us line up things. If we need to move it to another machine for scheduling purposes or because somebody didn’t show or a tool breaks, it allows you to react a lot faster.”
Epicor Insights 2025Nolan Beilstein
AI in a new ERP system can intimidate manufacturers still exploring its potential, which makes it difficult to determine what is immediately feasible and what will take time. During his presentation at Insights, Epicor CEO Steve Murphy identified four AI use cases that companies could implement immediately, based on results reported by Epicor AI customers participating in co-innovation early adopter programs.
The use cases included accelerating communications and supply chain decisions through quoting, suggesting related items during sales with ordering, fast-tracking employee learning via onboarding and interpreting lists, charts and spec sheets through analysis.
However, multiple Epicor experts cautioned against trying to implement too many system features too quickly.
“You have to set a target and know exactly what you’re trying to accomplish,” said Deb Anderson, the chief innovation officer for machinery manufacturer Webster Industries. “Then you have to manage the scope creep, because if you allow it to happen, it’s just going to creep and creep and creep, and you’re going to want to add this and you’re going to add that. Before you know it, you’ve added six more months to your implementation.”