Fulcrum Reviews

Pros

Since December 2020, our manufacturing company in New Zealand has been implementing and utilizing Fulcrum. With a workforce of 25, half of whom are spread across sales, marketing, engineering, and admin, and the other half working on the shop floor as production team members, we've experienced rapid growth, doubling our headcount in the past 12 months. In our quest for tools to facilitate scalability, we firmly believe that Fulcrum will have the most significant impact on our growth when we reflect five years from now. The launch team assigned to us from day one played a crucial role in our successful implementation. We had weekly video calls with them, where they patiently guided us through the basics, answered our numerous questions, and assisted us in preparing the data necessary for Fulcrum to go live. However, it's important to note that the implementation took longer than expected, primarily due to issues with our data set. Our BOMs lacked clarity, and the process of transferring the data to Fulcrum was not as streamlined as we had hoped. More detailed information can be found in the section below. We opted for a staged launch of Fulcrum within our business, gradually transitioning key components from our previous systems over a span of approximately six months. We started with inventory management, followed by jobs, and finally implemented the job tracking component used by our production team members on the shop floor. Additionally, on the day we launched job tracking, we conducted a full stocktake.

Cons

Our relationship with the key staff at Fulcrum is excellent. Given that their company is still young and the product is evolving, they face similar growing pains as we do. As a result, we have frequent communication with them regarding the product and the resolution of any problems or questions we raise. We believe the core of the product is solid, especially the Scheduler, which works like magic. However, there is room for improvement in the user experience, from onboarding to day-to-day usage by our team. It's worth noting that they are actively working on enhancing it. Over the past 10 months of using the product, we've witnessed incremental refinements, and we've been informed that the pace of improvement will only accelerate as their engineering team expands. Regarding the setup process, our company has fewer than 2000 unique item numbers across approximately 10 core products. Unfortunately, our previous inventory system maintained them as flat BOMs, so it took us a significant amount of time to structure the data for Fulcrum's understanding. Additionally, being based in New Zealand posed some challenges, as we required a US-based Fulcrum team member to upload our data each time we had a new version to test. Due to the time zone differences, this generally occurred once per day. However, we believe that if the upload process were accessible through a user-facing page, we could have expedited the process.

Pros

The Scheduler and JobTracker modules are outstanding products that seamlessly integrate with our ERP system. They play a vital role in ensuring our customers remain satisfied.

Cons

The software is robust and comprehensive, with no missing features. We appreciate the flexibility it offers to customize aspects when our business requirements change.

Pros

One of the aspects I really like the most about Fulcrum is their prompt and reliable technical support. Whether the issue is small or significant, I'm always just an email or instant message away from receiving fast and direct assistance.

Cons

My only complaint about the software is the occasional slowness in load times and the need for several workarounds due to limitations in the software and invoicing.