ERP Integration (EDGEBIC)

A First-Week ERP Integration Checklist for EDGEBIC

User Solutions TeamUser Solutions Team
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8 min read

A first-week EDGEBIC integration follows a fixed shape: export foundation data first, build one reusable mask per file, verify the counts at each step, run the first finite capacity schedule by day three, validate it against reality on day four, and lock a weekly rhythm on day five. The mask-building is front-loaded, so once the four masks exist the recurring work drops to a few minutes. This checklist works for any ERP because the file-based method is identical across all of them.

EDGEBIC by User Solutions has run this same first week with shops on dozens of ERPs since 1991. The documented benchmark in the lineage is a five-day green-field setup, and most mid-size manufacturers follow the same arc. The architecture that makes it ERP-agnostic is in why EDGEBIC connects to every ERP the same way.

Before you start

Two things make the week smoother. First, confirm your part numbers are consistent between reports, because the item identifier is the natural key that everything attaches to. Second, gather what you know about your work centers offline: how many identical machines each holds, its shifts, and which one is the real bottleneck. You will enter these anyway, and having them ready saves a day.

Day 1: items and work centers

  • Export your item list to CSV. Include identifier, description, unit of measure, and any cost worth having visible.
  • Build the product import mask by dragging column headings onto fields. Name it after the routine, so Weekly Items outlives items-week1.csv.
  • Run it and read the counts. A first run is mostly Created; that is expected.
  • Export work centers, or enter them directly. Set the real machine count, setup defaults, efficiency, and the bottleneck flag.
  • Build and run the work center mask. Confirm the counts.

The identifier match is case-insensitive, so casing differences between reports will not duplicate items.

Day 2: routings

  • Export routings or operations to CSV: one row per operation with end product, work center, sequence number, run time, setup time, queue time.
  • Build the routing mask. Set unit-conversion factors on the time columns now, minutes to hours is 0.016667, per-lot-of-100 to per-piece is 0.01, so run times land correct.
  • Run the two-pass import. Pass one validates and buffers; pass two groups by product, sorts by sequence, and wires the chain.
  • Open the graphical routing designer and confirm one product renders as one connected flow. This is your fastest correctness check.
  • Verify one product's run times against a job you have actually run.

Routings are the hardest data to move, so this is the heaviest day. The detail is in mapping routings vs operations from your ERP.

Day 3: orders, then the first schedule

  • Export open orders: product, quantity, order reference, dates.
  • Build and run the order import mask. Imported orders sit as unscheduled demand.
  • Run the scheduler. It states how many jobs are new and how many are being rescheduled before it plans.
  • Look at the first finite capacity schedule across your real shifts and machine counts.

Imports never schedule anything on their own, so nothing moved on the floor until you ran the engine here.

Day 4: validate against reality

This is the day shops are tempted to skip and should not.

  • Compare EDGEBIC's dates to your current promises.
  • Where they disagree, find the input that is wrong: a machine count, a shift calendar, or a setup time that does not match the floor.
  • Correct those inputs. The same mismatch was quietly wrong in your spreadsheet too.
  • Spot-check a few jobs you know well: does the sequence make sense, does the bottleneck load look right.

When a discrepancy traces to a real input you can fix, the schedule earns trust. When your known jobs come out right, the unknown ones are trustworthy by the same model.

Day 5: lock the rhythm

  • Confirm all four masks are saved and named for their routine.
  • Write down the import order: items, work centers, routings, orders, then scheduler.
  • Do one full dry run of the weekly routine end to end.
  • Export the finished schedule back as Excel for the floor.

The weekly rhythm is now muscle memory. The full recurring routine is in keeping ERP and EDGEBIC in sync, and sending dates back is covered in exporting the EDGEBIC schedule back to your ERP.

The week in one table

DayFocusOutcome
1Items and work centersFoundation data in, masks saved
2RoutingsConnected routings verified in the designer
3Orders and first scheduleFirst finite capacity plan produced
4Validate against realityInputs corrected, schedule trusted
5Lock the rhythmWeekly routine rehearsed and saved

Do the first week with your own data

The fastest way through the checklist is to do it with your own exports and a guide alongside you. Bring a week of exports to a demo and build the masks live, or start from a per-ERP guide like SAP or Sage that walks the same days in that system's terms. The ERP integration architecture shows where this checklist fits, and the EDGEBIC product overview shows the engine you will be feeding.

A mid-size shop typically goes from first export to a complete finite capacity schedule in about five days. The mask-building is front-loaded into the first two days, and once the four masks exist, each later run is two clicks. The documented benchmark in the User Solutions lineage is a five-day green-field setup, and most shops follow the same shape.

Foundation data first: items and work centers on day one, routings on day two, open orders on day three. That order lets you validate each layer before the next depends on it, and it keeps the routing import log clean because items and work centers already exist. Orders come last because they are the demand the scheduler consumes.

Generally no. The exports are standard reports or lists saved to CSV, which a planner can produce, and the masks are built by dragging column headings onto fields. There is no script to write, no API to configure, and nothing installed inside the ERP, so the first week is planner-led with occasional help pulling a report.

Expert Q&A: Deep Dive

Q: We are a one-planner shop and nervous about a go-live eating a whole week we do not have. Is the first week really manageable without dropping everything else?

A: It is designed to be part-time, not a full-week project, because the work is front-loaded and bounded. The heaviest day is building the routing mask with its unit conversions, and even that is a single focused session rather than a multi-day slog. The rest of the week is short: export a file, build or run a mask, read the counts, move on. You are not migrating data or configuring a server, you are teaching EDGEBIC to read files your ERP already produces, so there is no big-bang cutover and nothing breaks in the ERP if you pause partway. Many planners spread the five days across two calendar weeks around their normal work, doing an hour here and there, and still reach a real schedule. The end state is that the recurring effort drops to a few minutes, which is the whole reason to invest the first week.

Q: How do we know the first schedule is trustworthy and not just a plausible-looking output?

A: You validate it against reality on day four, which is the most important day and the one shops are tempted to skip. Compare EDGEBIC's dates to your current promises and, where they disagree, ask why. Usually the answer is that a machine count, a shift calendar, or a setup time in the model does not match the floor, and correcting that input is exactly the point of the exercise, since the same mismatch was quietly wrong in your spreadsheet too. Check a few specific jobs you know well: does the sequence make sense, does the bottleneck load look right, do the run times match a job you have actually run. When a discrepancy traces to a real input you can fix, the schedule earns trust; when your known jobs come out right, the unknown ones are trustworthy by the same model. The verification is not a formality, it is how the schedule becomes something the floor will follow.

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