Enterprise resource planning (ERP) specialist Lawson has launched a new version of its M3 Applications suite for manufacturing and distribution companies, designed to offer firms an improved user experience and greater flexibility to react to business changes.

M3 7.1 includes a new Smart Client interface, which delivers personalised information, including documents and 3D graphics, thus enabling staff to use their data more effectively, according to the firm’s global director of product management, John Gledhill.

“It’s as easy to manage from an IT perspective as a thin client, but from a user perspective it delivers the functionality, personalisation and configurability of a rich client,” he added.

The Smart Client is designed to run on a central server, and will be used from now on in all Lawson products.

The upgrade also boasts features designed to enable firms to conduct more effective supply chain management, the vendor said. Supply Chain Ordering automatically links all the orders in a supply chain so if any changes to orders occur the relevant information can be communicated immediately to the appropriate people, explained Gledhill.

“It will cut down on phone calls and emails,” he said. “We believe [Supply Chain Ordering] will be used by a huge number of our customers in many industries – it’s a huge step forward,” he added.

A new “what if” capability that analyses inventory and capacity is designed to help companies to deliver on their promises and provide better, more responsive customer service.

Also included are industry-specific features to help fashion manufacturers improve their capacity management and delivery performance, and improved demand planning features for manufacturers and distributors.

Customer reaction to the new launch was positive. Cormac Watters, CIO of multinational food group IAWS said that the Smart Client could reduce training time for his firm’s call centre staff, and potentially remove the need for messy modifications to the user interface.

“It also looks like you can draw information from several sources with this, not just M3,” he added. “Everyone uses little bits of other systems alongside M3, so we’d like [something that] consolidates data from multiple sources.”

Peter Matteo, CIO of plastics compounder Teknor Apex, said he plans to upgrade to 7.1 in the future. “The Smart Client is fantastic – we have data in so many places and formats that being able to organise that gives tremendous value,” he added. “Supply Chain Ordering is also of great vale, giving the ability to alert the right people in the process as soon as something changes.”

The firm also launched a new version of its popular business intelligence solution. Lawson Business Intelligence 9.0.2 features support for French and Swedish languages and integrates with the firm’s data warehouse application, Business Performance Warehouse, to provide a single version of the truth in firms’ data sources.

“BI is our fastest-growing application today,” said Lawson senior vice-president of product management, Dean Hager. “It’s the number-one way customers are experiencing more value with Lawson.”