read more at pandodaily.com

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Due to a rapidly expanding business, we are searching for an experienced recruiter to add to our established recruiting team. This is a full-time opportunity, based from our headquarters in Troy, MI and reports directly to the Director of Human Resources.

Principal Role & Responsibilities:

• Develop, implement and manage a recruiting strategy to source and attract top IT applicants
• Identify and prescreen potential candidates
• Source candidates through internal database, job placement websites, user groups, social media tools, networking, and research
• Conduct thorough interviews with potential candidates over the phone
• Schedule and prepare candidates for in-person interviews
• Coordinate and follow-up with hiring managers throughout the recruiting cycle, ensuring a timely, efficient, and effective interview process
• Build the Plex Systems “brand” within top colleges and universities by establishing relationships with Professors and Career Services to develop effective recruiting programs
• Attend campus recruiting events including, but not limited to: career fairs, workshops, company presentations, user-group meetings

Requirements:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources,  Business Administration, or a related degree is preferred
• Minimum 4+ years recruiting experience
• Strong networking skills
• Aggressive self-starter
• Effective communication skills, written and verbal
• Must be able to learn, comprehend, and articulate complex requirements
• Strong organizational skills
• Ability to travel

Plex Systems offers competitive wages, full-coverage health insurance (medical, dental, optical), 401K, flextime and other benefits. Visit www.plex.com to learn more.

To apply for this position send your cover letter and resume to jobs@plex.com

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TROY, Mich., May 15, 2013 – Plex Systems (Plex) – provider of the Plex Manufacturing Cloud, the only native cloud ERP system with manufacturing at its core – today announced the appointment of technology marketing veteran Heidi Melin as the company’s chief marketing officer. Melin’s appointment follows a period of aggressive expansion for Plex, including the recent placement of Jason Blessing as its chief executive officer and investments from Francisco Partners and Accel Partners.

“Plex is uniquely positioned to help the manufacturing sector take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing,” said Blessing. “Plex is the only vertical cloud ERP product that can run both the shop floor and the back office for a manufacturing company.  Heidi’s experience building great technology brands will help us capitalize on the large market opportunity in front of us.”

Melin joins Plex from enterprise cloud expert Eloqua (recently acquired by Oracle), where she served as senior vice president and chief marketing officer. Previously, Melin was responsible for the global marketing team at Taleo, a pioneer in cloud computing. She has also held senior marketing positions at Polycom, Hyperion and PeopleSoft.

Melin will report to Jason Blessing, and will be responsible for the global strategy and execution of all aspects of Plex Systems’ marketing efforts.

“Plex is changing global manufacturing just as cloud solutions have transformed sales, marketing and human capital management in other industries,” said Melin. “A global customer base, a mature product, and domain expertise give us a competitive advantage in this exciting market. Add aggressive year-over-year growth and an impressive sales trajectory, it is truly an exciting time to join Plex.”

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About Plex Systems, Inc. (Plex)

The Plex Manufacturing Cloud ushers in a new era of ERP with a complete system designed to power today’s modern manufacturer. Built from the plant floor up, the Plex Manufacturing Cloud enables forward-thinking businesses to increase throughput with existing facilities, squeeze more profits from every order, understand where they are most exposed to risk, respond to customer demand, and keep up with the speed and volume of data on today’s plant floor. No other company offers a manufacturing-first, native cloud solution as complete as Plex. Founded in 1995, Plex is headquartered in Troy, Mich., with customers around the globe.

For further information, please visit Plex.com, read the Plex Manufacturing Shift blog, and connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and LinkedIn.

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Giving back to our communities

Each year, Plex employees nominate and vote on a focus charity they’d like to support. Through individual giving and fundraising efforts coordinated by our internal Plex Giving team — including fun company activities such as pancake breakfasts and our annual wine-tasting dinner and silent auction — we were able to raise more than $55,000 for Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan last year, granting wishes for 11 children with life-threatening illnesses.

In 2013, we’re proud to support Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeastern Michigan.

For more than 35 years, Gleaners has provided the equivalent of more than 100,000 meals each day and distributed emergency food to more than 550 partner soup kitchens, shelters and pantries in an effort to end hunger in Southeastern Michigan.

Each of us at Plex is grateful for the good fortune we’ve experienced. That is why we love to give back, especially when we can contribute to a cause that directly benefits our neighbors.

Whether our employees coordinate and attend elaborate charity events or donate a meal, we encourage everyone to be a part of the hunger solution — and they have certainly stepped up.

With 2013 not even half over, our team members have already raised nearly $10,000 — which translates to more than 28,000 meals for hungry Metro Detroiters.

Of course, you don’t have to be a Plex employee to help Gleaners with their goal of “nourishing communities by feeding hungry people.” For more information about how you can become a member of the Gleaners Community Food Bank team, please visit gcfb.org or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.

We hope you’ll join us in our efforts to support Gleaners throughout the year. Check out the Plex calendar for a list of upcoming fundraising events.

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Who’s afraid of the big bad cloud? (Image courtesy of en.paperblog.com)

Reasons to avoid cloud ERP and SaaS are starting to disappear.

Cloud service providers are working diligently to prove that their solutions are not cost-saving last resorts, but rather data powerhouses. They are proving that cloud computing is not the future of ERP – it’s the present.

Cloud computing is not only secure and fiscally smart; it is driving success in adopters, as last week’s news demonstrates. Read on…

Growth of Cloud Computing and ERP Continues to Accelerate

Companies are quickly realizing the benefits of cloud computing. With new surveys released that show the links between cloud ERP and success, this Technorati article shows that the technology can no longer be ignored – will you let it leave you in the dust, or will you ride the cloud into a new era of success?

Is Cloud-based ERP Inevitable?

As some of the largest companies in the world move to the cloud to save money as well as increase productivity and sales, Enterprise Apps Today asks: Is cloud ERP starting to reach maturity?

Cloud Security: A Real Concern or Just an Excuse?

Security concerns are consistently cited as a top reason for cloud adoption hesitation, but why? Steve Pate, CTO and co-founder of HighCloud Security, lists his reasons for cloud doubt and makes his predictions for the status of the technology’s future in the next two years. 

The post ERP Weekly News Highlights, 5/6/13-5/10/13 appeared first on Plex Systems.

read more at the Automotive Design and Production website.

The post Better Business Intelligence Through ERP appeared first on Plex Systems.

Jim Shepherd, Plex Vice President of Strategy

By Jim Shepherd, Plex Vice President of Strategy

American manufacturing is definitely bouncing back. This year’s growth is expected to exceed both 2012 rates and GDP increases. There’s no question that things are looking up.

There’s also no doubt that manufacturers are exploring new tools to manage growth, including advanced technologies.

What’s not as clear to many, though, is the role that technology is playing in creating growth. Is technology an engine that drives increased manufacturing demand or a solution that helps manufacturers meet that demand?

If you ask users of manufacturing cloud solutions, they’ll tell you it’s both.

The Manufacturing Cloud and Culture Change

Often, the decision to move from paper-based, on-premise, disparate systems to a single, integrated cloud solution is made at the moment a manufacturing company feels it is time to move into a new market or appeal to larger customers.

Company leaders simply realize that they must have a more reliable, robust system in place in order to expand or attract those new customers.

Many businesses implement manufacturing cloud technologies at the same time they’re making the cultural shifts needed to prepare for business growth. In these cases, the technology becomes a change agent. It drives the transition to a more streamlined, efficient and productive organization — one that prospects want to do business with.

Technology Advantages and Reshoring

There’s also a lot of buzz about American manufacturers winning back business they’d previously lost to other regions of the world. In the long run, that may be the best form of business growth. Many of these reshoring success stories come from manufacturing cloud users.

Leading cloud technologies give American manufacturers the edge they need. Most concluded long ago that they can’t compete with other regions of the world on labor costs.

With cloud solutions that are designed from the manufacturing floor up, they are having success gaining new business by emphasizing other advantages, such as:

• Better shop floor controls
• Production visibility
• Speed to market
• Ease of reporting
• Flexibility

Manufacturing cloud users are proud to bring prospective customers into their facilities to show off robust, reliable technology. For OEMs and tier one suppliers that could be completely hamstrung if suppliers can’t deliver, confidence is critical.

The manufacturing cloud inspires the confidence needed to seal the deal.

So, as we all know from the age-old chicken-and-egg debate, there’s no clear-cut answer to the question of ‘which came first?’

In the case of manufacturing growth and cloud technology, there shouldn’t be. They feed each other and work together to transform cultures and define modern manufacturing.

Has new technology helped you land new business? How?

The post Technology and Growth: Which Is the Chicken and Which Is the Egg? appeared first on Plex Systems.

John Dancoe, Plex Product Manager

By John Dancoe, Plex Product Manager

As everyone knows, if data is good, then big data is really good!

IntelliPlex has gone a long way toward helping companies in the Plex Manufacturing Cloud produce and distribute meaningful reports and handy, at-a-glance dashboards. This useful tool provides state-of-the-art graphical presentation capabilities, Active Reports that travel with you (even without an Internet connection) and Accelerated Views that make it easy for non-programmers to build custom, near-real-time reports.

But IntelliPlex isn’t the only way to get custom data out of Plex. Because the Plex Manufacturing Cloud is built on SQL (Structured Query Language) Server databases, anyone who can – or who would like – to write their own SQL queries and reports can easily do so.

Transact-SQL is one of the world’s most ubiquitous, powerful and elegant programming languages; it’s very easy to learn, and with even a basic understanding of SQL, it’s possible to slice and dice that big data quickly and easily.

And that’s now easier than ever with our recent release of the dramatically upgraded SQL Development Environment.

The new interface is a quantum leap forward, providing features like:

• An enhanced editor with colorized keywords, indentation
• Tree views of database objects (stored procedures), views, and personalized execution history
• Detailed dialogs for fast code previews and easy reuse
• Improved SQL parsing and error reporting with notification dialogs
• Run queries against test as well as near-real-time report server databases
• Multiple export options

The SQL Development Environment in the Plex Manufacturing Cloud.

Custom stored procedures can be used as data sources for IntelliPlex reports and dashboards, as well as VisionPlex screens that can be launched directly from the menu with standard look-and-feel, including navigation links to other screens.

It’s your data – and the bigger it is, the more you should be able to leverage it to help inform your business decisions whenever you want.

The SQL Development Environment is like the Plex Manufacturing Cloud: always there and ready to serve when called upon.

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