You already have something on the floor. Here is how it moves.
Most SyteLine shops are not starting from nothing. They are running labor collection, a document repository, the quality module in the ERP, and a dashboard tool, and the honest question is not whether the platform is better. It is what a change actually costs them. This page answers that per product, including the parts where the answer is that nothing needs to change at all.
These are real products
The tools named on this page are in production at thousands of manufacturers and they were bought for good reasons. Nothing here argues they do not work. What differs is whether the floor ends up on one record or several.
Keep what works
In two of the four cases below the recommendation is to keep what you have and let the platform use it. That is not a concession, it is the cheaper answer, and pretending otherwise would cost you money for our convenience.
There is no one-click migration
No importer reads somebody else's configuration perfectly. What exists is a method, and people who have done it before. Ask for the scope before you ask for the price.
Labor and shop floor transactions
- Your scanners, printers and terminals. This is a software change, not a hardware project.
- The transactions your people already know. The habit does not have to change for the data to get better.
- Your barcode label stock and your label content.
- Your configuration rather than your decisions. Labor transaction setup, work center parameters, indirect codes and shift rules get mapped across so nobody re-litigates choices that were settled years ago.
- Employee and work center master data, which already lives in SyteLine and is not duplicated in either system.
- Setup separated from run, attributed to a named operator, so job cost stops averaging the two together.
- Visual dispatch at the point of work rather than a list in the office.
- One capture that feeds cost, payroll and the schedule instead of three.
Run both in parallel on one cell for two weeks. Compare the numbers. Cut over when the floor believes the new ones.
Two things. There is no one click importer, and anyone who tells you there is has not done one: what exists is a mapping method and people who have run it before. And if you also use that product for warehouse mobility, receiving, put-away and picking, keep it. The platform does not cover warehouse execution today, so this is a partial move rather than a replacement, and we would rather say so now than discover it in week three.
Document storage and retrieval
- Everything. Your documents stay in the repository you already own, with the same permissions, the same versions and the same audit trail.
- Your retention policy and whoever administers it.
- Nothing moves. Doc-Trak treats the repository as a store rather than replacing it, so there is no migration to plan and no second copy of anything.
- Delivery to the point of use. The document stops waiting to be found and starts appearing on the operation.
- Rules that attach the right document to the right record automatically, including whole directories and barcode filed scans.
- Form output: the paperwork your transactions should have generated anyway, generated.
Point Doc-Trak at the repository, define the rules that matter most, and let the rest follow as you find them.
One trade-off to know up front: operator notes are not available when that repository is the store. If notes matter on your floor, that is a conversation to have early rather than late.
Inspection execution and specifications
- Your inspection plans and your specifications, where they already work. Specification management and inspection execution inside the ERP are real and they do their job.
- Your item, revision, lot and serial records, which are the same records either way.
- The parts that were never in scope for it: nonconformance, corrective action, engineering change, deviations, audits and supplier quality. Those come across from wherever they live now, which is usually a document, a spreadsheet and somebody memory.
- Cost of poor quality that appears in job margin next to labor and machine cost.
- One master rather than two. Because it is native, there is no bidirectional sync to build and no second version of the truth to reconcile.
- Available now, inside SyteLine.
An uplift rather than a replacement. Keep what executes, add what closes the loop.
Calibration and gage management are not covered. If those are your binding constraint, say so early and we will tell you honestly where the boundary sits.
Dashboards and reporting on ERP data
- Your tool and your licences, if you like them. Nothing here requires you to stop using a BI platform your team is good at.
- The definitions, which is the part that actually costs you. Fifteen purpose built subject areas with published field definitions and validation routines replace the semantic layer you have been rebuilding at every upgrade.
- Two departments getting the same scrap rate, because there is one set of inclusion rules rather than two models.
- Analysis on the record you are already looking at rather than in a dashboard you have to go and find.
- Drill through from a variance to the transaction that caused it, every time.
Run in parallel deliberately. If the numbers disagree, that disagreement is the finding.
This is the one where keeping both is a legitimate answer. Plenty of shops keep a BI tool for finance and use the platform for the floor.
In your time, which is the currency that matters
| Moving | Your effort | Our effort | Elapsed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Documents | Almost none. Point us at the repository and approve the rules. | Rule design and form output setup. | Days |
| Quality | Deciding your workflows, which you should own anyway. | Configuration, and mapping whatever exists in documents today. | Weeks |
| Analytics | One owner per subject area willing to defend the definitions. | The model, the reports and the validation routines. | Weeks |
| Labor and transactions | Time on the floor with your supervisors, and a parallel run. | Configuration mapping, installation, floor training. | Weeks to a couple of months |
Ranges rather than promises. The variable is never the software, it is how clean your routings and standards are, which is the first phase of any of these and is mostly your work. Infor product names appear on this page so that you can recognize what you run; they are named factually and with respect. Infor logos and trademarks are property of Infor.
Ask for the scope before you ask for the price
Tell us what you run today and we will tell you what stays, what converts, what it takes from your team, and where we would tell you not to bother.
Scope a conversionAlready a Lake customer