Epicor sued over alleged ERP project failure

IDG News Service - Epicor is being sued by one of its customers over an ERP (enterprise resource planning) project that allegedly racked up five times its expected implementation costs, in the latest dispute of this type to become public.

Whaley Foodservice Repairs, a Lexington, South Carolina, company that sells and fixes commercial kitchen equipment, first discussed buying an ERP system from Epicor in 2006, according to a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.

Whaley wanted a vendor that could provide "a fully integrated, real-time software solution capable of handling its operations, including the parts, sales and services aspects," the complaint says.

The project was supposed to be up and running in Whaley's main office and 12 branch locations by March 2007, but was delayed multiple times and never worked as advertised in more than two years of use, according to the complaint.

The implementation costs were supposed to be US$190,000 but have reached more than $1 million, the complaint says. Whaley is suing Epicor for fraud, breach of contract, unfair trade and negligent misrepresentation. It wants its money returned along with additional money for damages.

Epicor was recently acquired by private equity firm Apax Partners in a $976 million deal. Epicor did not reply to requests for comment. A spokesman for Apax Partners declined comment.

Whaley said it provided prospective vendors with a "scripted demo," essentially a written guide to show how their software should map to the company's business processes. Epicor demonstrated its software and assured Whaley it could meet all of its requirements, according to the complaint. Epicor officials attested they would be the "single source for [Whaley's] software and/or maintenance needs."

In October 2006, Whaley sent Epicor additional information about its requirements. The companies signed a contract on Oct. 16 of that year, the complaint says.

The project did not go well due to a variety of shortcomings in Epicor's software, according to Whaley.

The software "did not allow [Whaley] to view inventory movements for up to 12 to 18 hours after commitment of the inventory for sale and/or delivery to a customer," the suit claims. It was also unable to synchronize a number of Whaley's sales, distribution and service databases, or handle the company's transaction volumes, the complaint says.

Epicor tried to fix the software but failed, according to Whaley. In addition, some of the software used was not Epicor's, according to the complaint. It was written by Evron Computer Systems. Whaley says it was forced to pay Evron to try to repair some of the defects.

There was also high turnover among the Epicor workers assigned to the project, according to the suit.