Your Advantage™

We Give Manufacturers an Unfair Advantage

Utilizing Infor SyteLine ERP (CloudSuite Industrial) along with our own unique business strategies gives you the business and software infrastructure that provides your company a foundation to achieve far greater business successes. Is your manufacturing company ready to take the next step to greater levels of production and efficiency? Do you seem to be doing everything right, investing in the shop floor with methods and new equipment, yet real success seems to be consistently out of reach? It’s time to reshape your backstage. Yes, we said reshape your backstage, not your backside.

Our ERP solutions model is designed to drive your business forward by improving your backstage, which supports everything that is done within your business. Your backstage could be thought of as everything that is done within the four walls of the company. A highly tailorable, yet migration-friendly ERP infrastructure, along with proven business growth strategies will help your backstage efficiently handle the changing demands of your growing business. The proof is in our client base. They are reaping the benefits of their growing businesses via a more efficient backstage.

The right ERP application is a solution for any manufacturer, whether small, mid-size, or large. Our clients range from small local manufacturers to regional and global operations with dozens of individual sites. No matter what your current size, if your organization wants to become a big success, without the headaches, hassles, excessive time and costs it often takes to get there, Lake Companies can help.

We Make Your Organization Efficient!

Like putting a solid foundation under a house, a strong technology foundation for your company is a critical requirement to support business growth. A robust ERP infrastructure that is easily tailored to the unique operations and demands of your business is crucial to your on-going success. Our software is migration-friendly, intuitive, and easy to maintain. It saves time, money, and headaches. Back that with our outstanding customer service and fantastic track record, and you have a recipe for catapulting your business to the stratosphere!

More importantly, the key to success is simplicity. But how do you simplify in light of constant changes? There are regulatory and compliance-related changes; those of the customer, or just internal changes due to technological advances. Anyone of them increasing costs and impeding efficiency while impacting service to your customer and your organization’s profitability. Our approach is to bring simplicity back to the internal processes of the organization. When you couple new and evolving technology with sound, forever green business strategies, you set the foundation for growth. Obviously it doesn’t hurt to have a good product. That is your responsibility. You take care of that and we will help you streamline everything else.

The Strategies are the key, but the Relationship is Everything

Like our first customer from over 30 years ago, we pride ourselves and our reputation on life-long relationships. Imagine how beneficial it is to not be forced to switch ERP providers every few years, repurchasing and re-implementing software, or sometimes even worse, have your company stuck on antiquated, old technology and be so modified you cannot move forward.

Our customer-for-life strategy is based on providing solutions that drive benefits to the customer today, while not sacrificing their future. Our strategies stand the test of time. At the same time, our technologies allow customers a migration path to whatever version of the software they feel will further the success of their company when they choose to migrate.

We will help you implement the strategies and technology, then stay out of your way until you need any assistance. We’ll help you be self-sufficient so you can control your own destiny without feeling chained to a billing machine. When the time is right, we’ll also help you upgrade to the latest version of the software, leapfrogging over multiple versions you didn’t need at the time. Our job is to provide an effective, efficient service that precisely fits your needs, so you can stay as close to the forefront of technology as you wish.

The Proof Lies Behind the Product

Simply put, you can tell more about the success of a product by the success of those using it. In addition, the flexibility, adaptability, and ease of migration are factors of the toolset that supports the technology. SyteLine is superior in both. No other company has the technology toolset of SyteLine, which is called Mongoose. The benefits of Mongoose are substantial and totally unique. Mongoose is a key component of what drives the success of our customers.

Mongoose and SyteLine are key components of the foundation that allows Lake Companies to successfully serve our clients and their continual growth, efficiency, and profitability for the long-term. No one can provide the level of service, support, and success, combined with the level of technology that you will get with Lake Companies and SyteLine ERP.

Discrete Manufacturing is Our Sweet Spot

You will find the key to the type of industries we serve in the Industries and Client Success section of our website. We happily provide links directly to our client’s websites so you can see their vast product offerings and capabilities which speak volumes about who we serve. It is important to know that Infor SyteLine fits a discrete manufacturer, whose products are either, or a combination of:

• Engineer-To-Order
• Configure-To-Order
• Make-To-Order
• Assemble-To-Order
• Make-To-Stock
• Kanban
• Repetitive

A Little History

• Lake Companies was created in 1983, with many years of manufacturing experience.
• The initial focus was small manufacturers whose only option was extremely expensive technology. We felt we could offer a cost competitive solution.
• In 1984, we were introduced to Micro Manufacturing Systems, whose product was called MCS-3.
• In 1986, Micro Manufacturing Systems created a new technology product called Syman that was written in a language called Progress.
• A shortcoming of Syman was in regard to shop floor labor collection.
• The owners of Lake Companies were highly experienced in the area of labor collection.
• In 1988, we developed Labr-Trak, which today has evolved into Shop-Trak.
• Micro Manufacturing Systems later changed their name to MMS International, then to Symix, and finally to Frontstep.
• The Syman product was renamed SyteLine in the 1990s.
• Over the years the capabilities of SyteLine have grown, which allowed Lake Companies to move up market to larger companies.
• We understand it is nearly impossible for large software products to come down market, which cemented our uniqueness.
• In 1995, we developed Enterprise Analytics for SyteLine, renamed Fact-Trak a few years ago.
• In 1999, Doc-Trak for SyteLine was developed.
• In 2003, SyteLine was rewritten to be a Microsoft SQL application.
• Shortly after the release of the SQL version of SyteLine, Frontstep was acquired by MAPICS.
• Within a couple of years MAPICS was acquired and is now owned by Infor.
• Today, we have more than 800 clients and far more sites located worldwide that use our products.
• In the last few years, we have released our most advanced offerings of our products ever delivered.
• Our products are sold by Infor Partner organizations around the globe.
• Lake Companies has always provided the complete SyteLine ERP (CloudSuite Industrial) solution to manufacturers in the upper midwest region of the U.S.
• Keeping our feet firmly in manufacturing has provided us with the luxury of being close to our clients, yet technologically superior in our offerings.
• In 2005, Greg Lake joined the Strategic Coach organization which provides concepts and strategies to dramatically grow businesses.
• Lake Companies is licensed to use those strategies, along with SyteLine, our products and our customer-for-life focus, which are helping our clients grow in ways no one else can offer.
• If you check with Infor, Infor Partners and SyteLine customers, Lake Companies has always been an innovation leader and we are not stopping that trend.