Smart manufacturing theme still strong in Asia as cloud and AI capabilities grow alongside ERP

Artificial intelligence, cloud and smart manufacturing have emerged as the top priorities shaping the ERP landscape in Malaysia and across Asia, according to regional Epicor leaders at the sidelines of their annual flagship event in Bangkok.

Asked what customers are most keen to discuss, Vincent Tang, VP for Epicor Asia, summed it up simply:  

“Probably AI, cloud and smart manufacturing.”

For manufacturers in Malaysia and Singapore in particular, the interest is focused and intense, he observed.

Ben Lim, regional sales director for Epicor chipped in, “Customers from Malaysia and Singapore… are very, very focused very much on Smart Manufacturing. AI definitely is the next (focus).”

Cloud ERP, meanwhile, has shifted from optional to essential.

“Cloud deployment model is no longer a new thing. It’s a must nowadays. It… (lets) them deploy much faster… so, it’s faster, scalable, easier, and, of course, running with the support of Epicor localisations,” he added. 

The event itself was designed as more than a product showcase. It brought customers from North Asia, Southeast Asia, and the ASEAN region together to compare notes, plan roadmaps, and meet Epicor’s global leadership.

 “The idea of having this event is to allow the customer to get to know Epicor better, have a chance to meet up with the global leadership team, and also to network with our customers from different parts of Asia,” said Vincent who also highlighted incentives for customers who commit to new projects.

From MRP to connected systems

Vincent traced back how manufacturing priorities in Asia have evolved over the past two decades, from material planning to end-to-end connected systems. With over 20 years experience with ERP in manufacturing, he described the 10 to 20 year evolution from MRP (materials requirements planning) to MES (manufacturing execution system) software.

This was parallelled by the manufacturing industry also progressing with philosophies and sets of practices like Lean Manufacturing and then Smart Manufacturing.

In fact, the last decade has been dominated by Industry 4.0 and national manufacturing agendas such as Germany’s Industry 4.0 and China’s Manufacturing 2025.

Vincent noted that in the last ten years, despite the Smart Manufacturing narrative having emerged in the industry, “…ERP is still in the centre of it”, and he highlighted the importance of solutions like MES, business intelligence, and Internet of Things (IoT).

Ben also framed the shift in three stages – from “system of records” to “system of insights and action”, and now to “connected system” that ties ERP to machines, external tools and new technologies.

For example, the connected worker platform is a suite that links shop floor systems (MES), IOT/machine data, workforce tools and analytics to give real-time visibility, coordinate tasks, and drive workflows. 

Third party apps and external services like Workato that enable faster, repeatable deployments can also plug into Epicor solutions.

Tariffs, relocation and the cloud  

Geopolitics is also reshaping ERP requirements. In export-heavy Malaysia, tariffs and supply chain disruption are now design constraints, not afterthoughts.

“Malaysia’s GDP is 80-percent export, so definitely it’s high impact when it comes to tariffs,” Ben said.

But he pointed out organisations that have the data and systems to react quickly, also have a unique differentiator. 

With tariff requirements and a fluctuating economy disrupting the supply chain and causing endless uncertainty, questions that tend to float to the top of leaders’ minds are: How to mitigate? Do we have visibility? Do we relocate operations?

Ben cited a customer that rapidly expanded to the US and Europe, using Epicor’s cloud platform to spin up new sites without heavy on-premise infrastructure. “If they didn’t have Epicor Cloud, it would have slowed down the whole action.” 

On top of that, the requirement of a system to support multi-country, muti-site, multi-language, multi-currency, is something (customers) demand, Vincent said, based on his experience with customers from China who have goals to expand markets beyond the country.

Connected ecosystem, BI and growth  

Epicor is leaning into a connected-ecosystem strategy built around its manufacturing focus. Its portfolio includes a connected worker platform for smart manufacturing and Automation Studio for template-based integration with external systems such as HR and third-party apps. 

“We can’t have everything… there are other players who have their fortes which is (why) at the end of the day, we will rely on (integration to create a) more holistic solution,” Vincent admitted.

On the analytics side, Epicor has invested in BI, including the acquisition of Grow, to help customers turn accurate operational data into “meaningful information” for decision making. 

Cloud adoption is rising fast. The company’s Asia revenue mix has shifted from almost 100-percent on-premises to roughly half cloud, half on-prem, with cloud expected to overtake in the coming years.

This is underpinned by a broader growth story.  

 “When I joined in 1999, we were the 13th largest ERP in the world, and today, we are ranked fifth largest. We were only a USD150 million dollar company, and today we are over USD1.4 billion. We used to have only three offices – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan – and today we have 12 offices. 

“So our business is going very healthy,” Vincent concluded.