Escape Velocity Systems (EVS) (www.evs-sw.com) recently announced that process (formula based) manufacturing operations are increasingly focused on Formula Costing. According to EVS President Evan Garber, "It is possible to integrate formulation, quality control, costing and inventory; and to do this without sacrificing core accounting and distribution functionality. We have experience bringing all of these departments together into unified systems, achieving accelerated business processes, minimizing errors and enabling real-time communication and visibility throughout the organization."

Non-integrated Systems is a major concern for most process manufacturers (foods, chemicals, life sciences, primary metals and others) who often suffer from DAOP (Data All Over the Place) and WROBWE (We Run Our Business With Excel).


Formulation and Costing for Process Manufacturers Must Include:

- All information should be kept securely within an ERP system instead of Access, Excel or the like.
- Formula costing with current inventory costs from the ERP system must be included.
- The cost in errors, maintenance and IT support to an non-integrated formulation is significant both financially and in terms of quality control.
- Quality control tests must be tracked in both inventory and distribution systems
- Quality control test results and hold / release actions affect current inventory handling
- Track lot attributes from raw materials all the way to the customer...Production and Costing
- Production software must perform expected calculations based on lot attributes
- Benefit from full lot and cost traceability through production
- Immediate alerts and access to key data such as batch yield / cost variances and production anomalies



Process Manufacturing describes a manufacturing process whereby materials are blended, cooked, or mixed as opposed to assembled from discrete units. Some needs common to process manufacturing industries are:

- Formulas (or recipes) are ratios, not static bills of material
- Split bill of material: several products can share one formula, yet have different packaging
- Flexibility with units of measure
- Stringent quality control, with recall ability
- Lot grading / attribute tracking and calculation

Escape Velocity Systems (EVS) was formed in 2001 to combine specific industry knowledge related to process manufacturing, distribution, and ERP implementations with cutting edge software development. The company focus is to create tools that enable mid-market enterprises to achieve their goals, focusing on lean processes and ROI.

The term escape velocity refers to the speed that is necessary for an object to overcome gravity and soar into space. EVS provides direct applications for businesses looking for a catalyst, not just a software package. Process manufacturers require the best software solution coupled with industry experience that will accelerate the velocity with which they race towards their goals. The gravity of status-quo opposes aggressive, cutting edge organizations as they strive towards high quality and short lead time delivery while reducing inventories and operating costs.