Thanks Walter for you quick and detailed reply. We are a small company but poised to grow very rapidly this year. We are looking for a solution that we can use for the next 5+ years. Our minimum requirements are the following modules: ARAP module, Order Entry, Procurement, Service/Support Issue creation and tracking, CRM, Project Management, and Inventory Tracking module.
We'd like the ability to change/customize the Accounting module to provide for a Throughput accounting method vs. a Cost accounting method. My question to the group is how long it takes to get on board with ofbiz to be able to make minimal add a field to the GUI type changes as well as more significant changes to meet the uniqueness of our business? Also, what technologies do I need to be proficient in? I have a C.S. in Computer Science and have been working with open source technologies for about 10 years. I have no Java experience but am willing to learn. Thank again for you help. Best Regards, Case -----Original Message----- From: Walter Vaughan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, April 02, 2007 6:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Any small manufacturers using OFBiz? We are not live with it today, but we are looking at a 8 week golive window. We too are a small manufacturing company of around 60 employees, but we also distribute our products worldwide from all different directions of the supply chain. We sell face to face, we sell via a combo B2B and B2C website, we sell to retailers, we sell to resellers, we sell to wholesalers, we sell to other manufacturers. We drop ship for others and some of our products are drop shipped from others. We manufacture for ourselves, and we purchase other goods to resell. We sell on Ebay. Most of the changes we needed have been put into the project, either into ofBiz or the OpenTaps financial modules. What works is that ofBiz is the "anti-niche". All the commerical systems I've looked at are really good at one or two levels... Manufacturing and wholesaling or wholesaling and distributing or purchasing and retailing. And it's not a matter that ofBiz is free. You still will have a lot of costs to deploy, you just remove the cost per seat tax. It still will cost for external training, data conversion, features that you may need and are not ready to develop on your own, etc... I don't know yet what *doen't work* but, we've been looking at this project for almost 10 months now, and I feel better now about the direction we have gone, than if someone had given us $650K for a closed source solution. I don't know how long you have been following the project. If your need is primarly manufacturing, search the archives and follow the goings on of Jacopo. He's the guy. I'd suggest you contact someone like HotWax http://www.hotwaxmedia.com or OpenSource Strategies http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz/ and get a quick professional evaluation. If you like what you see, then get one of the longer evaluations. > Please point me in the right direction if this is not the right place to > post a message of this kind. No, this is exactly the right spot. -- Walter
