What an implementation takes, including the part that is yours
Thirty to 120 days for one product. Six to nine months for the full platform. The range is driven by data quality and operator adoption, not by the software install, which is why the first phase is mostly your work and no vendor can do it for you.
Data readiness
Mostly you, with Lake alongsideRoutings, work centers and standards get reconciled against what the floor actually does rather than papered over. This is the phase that decides whether the rest of the program works, and it is the phase most vendors skip in the proposal.
- Routings and operation sequences that match reality
- Work center and resource definitions
- Standards you are willing to be measured against
- A decision about who owns data quality afterwards
- The reconciliation method and the validation routines
- The list of what is wrong, in priority order
- Honesty about how long your list will take
Capture on the floor
SharedLabor and machine capture go live at the workstation. Operators are the first users, deliberately, because if the floor does not adopt it nothing above it works.
- Time on the floor with your supervisors, not just your IT lead
- A decision on identification method per person
- Patience through the first two weeks, when the data will embarrass somebody
- Installation, configuration and floor training
- Machine interfaces, including the older assets
- Deliberately no formal machine training until roughly two weeks of data exists, so the first conversation is about your numbers
Answers and activation
Mostly Lake, with you decidingAnalysis and planning run on data the floor trusts. The products in your tier are already entitled, so the next one is a decision to install rather than a new purchase.
- Decisions about which questions matter most
- One owner per subject area who will defend the definitions
- Subject areas, reports and role views
- Scheduling method and validation routines
- Installation and configuration of whatever comes next, without a new sales cycle
Routings, work centers and standards have to be reconciled against what the floor actually does. Software cannot do that. What Lake brings is the method, the validation routines, and an honest list of what is wrong in priority order.
Switching on the next product
Every product in your tier is yours from day one. You decide what to install and when. Activation is how a product gets switched on: we configure it, set it up and train your administrator to run it.
What every activation includes
- The standard configuration for the product, done with your team
- Train-the-trainer for your lead users, so the knowledge stays in your building
- Included configuration hours for any product that is new to your account
As time allows
Further configuration, in the order you choose, as the included hours permit.
Quoted separately
Work beyond the standard configuration is quoted before it starts, as a fixed fee wherever possible.
What activation includes, product by product
Shop-Trak
Shop-Trak parameters; employee, item, work center and workstation profiles; shift, indirect and scrap codes; standard labels; daily transaction administration; train-the-trainer on the Labor, Materials and Info tabs and Visual Dispatch.
Quoted separately: payroll integration and custom labels.
Doc-Trak
Doc-Trak parameters and polling; security; the standard repository and archiving plan; starter document saving rules, form output profiles and virtual rules; utilities; train-the-trainer on attachments and emailing reports.
Machine-Trak
Your tier's included machine licenses, installed by Lake on your network over standard connections (FOCAS, MTConnect, OPC, MQTT), with no extra hardware. Installing the Machine-Trak licenses included in your tier carries no risk: Lake installs them, and you pay nothing if you decide not to use them. Machines you keep using may require a setup fee.
A two-month cloud trial of the included licenses is available; after the trial, hosting is a paid service.
Fact-Trak
On Infor's multi-tenant cloud, a data streaming pipeline from Infor is required first. Your account team confirms what your version supports and what the activation covers.
Quality-Trak activation is scoped with your account team. Vantage is expected early 2027 and is included in every tier when it ships.
Before we start
Prerequisites are listed per product. The common ones: SyteLine 9 or later; machines on your network with assigned IP addresses and the required ports open; a Windows server for machine data collection; email enabled and user email addresses loaded for Quality-Trak.
How to ask
Talk to your account team, or use Talk about your floor. An activation request form is coming; it routes your request to the activation desk rather than the support queue.
After go-live
Check-ins and activation help are part of the subscription. Support runs through one portal for every product.
Five things that stall the first ninety days
- Being several ERP releases behind. Getting current is a services conversation before it is a platform conversation, and anyone who skips past it is selling you a project that will stall. The minimum for every platform product is SyteLine 9.
- Routings and standards nobody has reviewed in years. This is phase one and it is unavoidable.
- No on-premises collector planned for machine data, including on cloud ERP. Your machines are on your network.
- No data streaming pipeline in place for Fact-Trak on cloud ERP.
- Treating the operator as the last user rather than the first. If the floor does not adopt it, nothing above it works.
A pilot that actually tells you something
- Pick machine types, not machine counts. Two or three different control generations tell you more than ten identical machines.
- Pick one work center where the argument is loudest. If the data settles that argument, adoption follows.
- Run the first two weeks without formal training on the machine data, so the first real conversation is about your numbers rather than a demo dataset.
- Expect the first two weeks of data to surprise somebody. That is the product working.
- Installing the Machine-Trak licenses included in your tier carries no risk: Lake installs them, and you pay nothing if you decide not to use them. Machines you keep using may require a setup fee.