WM Synergy has formed an AI Business Unit to help small and midsize manufacturers and distributors decide which AI tools to use with their existing ERP systems. The Houston-based consultancy announced the unit on October 27 and said it was available immediately. Its initial areas of focus include sales order entry, matching incoming payments to invoices, and handling exceptions in material requirements planning (MRP).
Michael Canty, WM Synergy’s director of AI solutions, leads the unit, which brings ERP consultants and AI engineers into one team. Canty previously served as senior director of global operations at Haptiq, where WM Synergy says he helped establish the company’s AI practice. The new unit will also guide AI adoption within WM Synergy itself.
Choosing between built-in AI, add-ons, and custom agents
In a follow-up LinkedIn post, WM Synergy described a purchasing problem for manufacturers. ERP, planning, accounts payable, and reporting applications can offer AI features that cover some of the same work. The unit will help clients identify which workflows to address first, evaluate the features already available in their ERP, and decide where an add-on or custom agent would fill a gap. WM Synergy is a channel partner for both Infor and Acumatica.
The company can also deploy its own tools. One example from its portfolio is InsightsAI, a conversational analytics product that lets users ask plain-English questions about ERP data. WM Synergy lists Infor VISUAL, Infor CloudSuite Industrial (SyteLine), Infor XA, and Acumatica Cloud ERP as supported platforms for InsightsAI. The consulting unit’s remit is broader and includes assessing data readiness, helping clients set governance rules, and developing agents that work alongside existing systems.
Who defines the numbers, and what can an agent change?
Keeping the ERP as the system of record still leaves companies with decisions about how other tools interpret its data. A sales team may calculate expected margin using the cost recorded at the time of a quote, while finance uses actual production costs after a job closes. Both figures can answer legitimate business questions. An AI tool reporting margin needs to identify which figure it used, and someone in the business needs to own that definition.
Permissions are a separate decision. In material planning, an agent could flag a shortage by comparing open orders, inventory, and expected receipts. Changing a purchase order or rescheduling production would require different permissions. WM Synergy says clients will retain control over which data AI tools can access and what actions they can take. Canty also said on LinkedIn that the firm builds in customers’ own environments and leaves administrative access with them.
“If it doesn’t show up in margins, cash flow, or on-time delivery, we haven’t done our job,” Canty said in the announcement. WM Synergy reported that an AI-assisted data migration in one engagement took three hours, compared with 120 hours previously. The company did not identify the customer or describe the scope of the migration, so the figures offer limited basis for comparing the result with other projects.
Sources
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