I’ll start!

Kristen Gastaldo

Customer Community Lead for IFS

I’ve been working in community management since 2012 and started with IFS in Oct 2019. 

I work from home and live just a few miles outside of Portland, Maine. 

Being that I live in Maine (which is lovely), my favorite vacation spot is basically anywhere warm. San Sebastian, Spain is next on my must-visit list, as soon as I feel bold enough to take my 4 year old son and 6 month old daughter on the flight! Here’s my crew:

Dean P Burell

Director Business Development  for Canyon Tech  an IFS Gold Partner

I worked for Avalon Software (acquired by IFS) in Marketing and Sales from 92 - 95, left for a few years and came back to IFS in 97 and held several roles as business analyst/software engineer,  project manager, and Business Solutions Consultant (presales) until I left in 2004.    After leaving IFS I worked with several other ERP and PLM solutions including Oracle, SAP, Infor, Deltek, etc.   In 2010 I was recruited by PwC to establish an internal IFS Competency center and worked with IFS Sales teams to pursue large A&D projects. In 2014 I started my own consulting company helping companies select and implement ERP solutions.  After many years of looking for the right opportunity to get more involved in the IFS world, I joined the team at Canyon Tech in November 2019.

I have experience with many areas of the IFS applications including engineering, manufacturing, supply chain, crm, projects, and a little with accounting (just enough to be dangerous)

I have worked in several industries including industrial manufacturing, high tech, Aerospace & Defense, Construction, Medical Device, and Food and Beverage.

I live in the country, about 45 minutes north of Dallas, Texas USA

Allison Wagner

Manufacturing - Buyer/ IFS Super User

In April 2019 we have upgraded from version 7.5 to 10. I have been on the implementation team for a year.  

Waukesha, Wisconsin.

And a fun fact: I have a love for traveling especially to warm places since you never know what type of weather you will have in Wisconsin.

Julian Johansen

System Specialist at Maersk Supply Service

I have been working with IFS 8 for 4-5 year, currently part of project upgrading to IFS 10. I was also part of the IFS 8 implementation 5 years ago.

My primary area is EAM, Maintenance, Work order management but I also have a very good grasp of Supply chain, master data in general and technical aspects of IFS (replication, setup, PL/SQL etc.)

I live approx. 1 hour from Copenhagen (Denmark) with my wife, daughter and possibly the worlds stupidest, yet likely happiest, golden retriever. 

This platform does support pictures. Just sayin’ ;)

I work from home in Vancouver, Washington. My wife Amanda and I have two children, Amelia and Felix. We enjoy camping and being outdoors.

My father was an engineer in avionics, and I grew up building crystal radios and fixing broken bicycles and lawn mowers. Many of my friends' parents worked at the Kennedy Space Center, which was close enough for the Space Shuttle launches to rattle our windows. I've always been an engineer at heart.

I joke that English was my second language; BASIC was my first. My parents bought a Commodore CBM 4032 for $25 from a school that was closing. It used cassette tapes for storage.

Back then, gaming software wasn't downloaded or installed by a disk off the shelf; it was copied by hand out of a Creative Computing book. (I also got a kick out of "playing" the programs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVsY9PVIKsQ)

I've programmed on every computer I've owned since.

Growing up, I had seen a lot of people unhappy with their jobs, and TV shows like Married with Children didn't help this stereotype. I loved computers too much to write software for a living, or so I thought, so I went to school for my second love, in the hope of designing cars.

(I didn’t stop writing programs for fun. This was a sketch of an engine I was trying to design in college.)

I graduated with a BSME Mechanical Engineering in December 2007 just as the economy was beginning to crash. I took a job measuring hydraulic seals for construction equipment so I could design aftermarket knock-off repair kits.

Doing redundant data entry for thousands of hydraulic kits was painfully boring, but in hindsight, boring jobs are the best for practicing automation. Early on, I wrote keyboard scripts using Auto Hotkey so I get my work done more quickly in IFS Applications 7. Later, after I learned some SQL and PL/SQL, I took a job in the IT department and wrote an interface to bring IFS data into the customer-facing web store.

I’ve worked in IT administration, financial analysis, and project management, but creatively developing new solutions is still what I enjoy doing the most.

Who are you?

Fabrizio Magistrelli

What’s your industry and profession?

Head of Business Applications at a Pharmaceutical Company Bio Products Laboratory

What IFS products are you using? How long have you been using them?

Currently using  IFS 7.5 finance, HR,Payroll,Supply chain, Distribution, manufacturing looking to expand functionality within the organisation.  I have been using IFS from 2009 from Mainly 7.5 and 8 in various roles from a functional to more technical support & development and now in a more strategic role in various companies in various industries over the years.

Where are you located?

Elstree, United Kingdom

And a fun fact: You can share your favorite vacation spot, favorite book, place on your bucket list, picture of your pet, etc. Anything you’d like to share!

The Chief Data Officer’s Playbook by Caroline Carruthers and Peter Jackson is a good read! 

Hellooo!

I am Farhad. Love the outdoors, running, hiking, travelling, cars, just enjoying life!

Joined IFS in 2002 and left in 2012 to join Accenture. Returned to IFS this year (2019) to head up a large program in Middle East.

I am an Industrial Engineer with over 20 years experience in ERP and Transformation programs and enjoyed many roles with IFS from presales, consulting, solution management, project management and account management.

I am passionate about IFS, love the culture and made many great friends both internally in IFS and with customers.

Please feel free to ask me anything, especially related to your strategy in regards to IFS → Global Rollouts, Transformation, Business value…

More information here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saloojee/

Hey!

My name is Damian, i work for ceramic tiles manufacturer Ceramika Paradyz in Poland.

I’ve started IFS story with version 2003 (production module) in 2004. Then I’ve rejoined Ceramika Paradyz team after 2003 to 7.5 update in 2010 and I’m still here . In May 2018 we have upgraded system version to Version 9. Now I’m responsible for whole solution with my Internal team (3 internal consultants). Personally I’m happy father of 2 kids and little crazy person with head in the clouds because I’m always looking for new challenges.

I hope to get and share knowledge here.

More about me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiangralek/

Hi !

I’m filiep, working as ERP Applications manager with IFS since version 7.5 SP 2.  The company i work for www.vyncke.com is building biomass fired  energy plants all over the world. So my 300 IFS users are located in belgium (main office), czech republic, germany, china, thailand, malaysia, brazil and spain.

Vyncke started with IFS in 2009 .. upgraded for the first time in 2015 to IFS8 SP1 and now recently mid 2019 to IFS10. We’re a project based company, relying for our finance on IFS in Belgium, czech republic and china and from next year on we want to add our thailand and malaysia offices. Apart from that the general term will be engineer-to-order. A bit of warehousing, manufacturing, engineering, after sales with customer orders but working on the work order module to make that more efficient from next year on as well for the whole “Service and Maintenance” solution.  And hoping to use IFS-HR module more efficiently in IFS10.

Apart from this i’m also a board member of the benelux ifs usergroup

https://ifsusergroup.nl/. where we try to be a networking platform for IFS users in Belgium and The Netherlands.

When not busy with IFS I’m mostly followed by our dog, bullied by our cat or driving one of my motorbikes !

and since linkedin is popular here … https://www.linkedin.com/in/filiep-vanwymelbeke-9039436/

I worked for 21+ years in IFS in Warsaw. Now I work as ERP Administrator at IFS customer 3 km away from my home. It is manufacturing company which produces ventilation equipment. We have factories in Grudziądz in Poland and in Sweden.

Let’s see whether this forum works better than openIFS.

Hi all 

I am working at a company that are in the process industry here in sweden as IT Project leader/ system administrator / computer guy. I have around 200 users to take care of. 

My version history with ifs is 2004, 7,5 and 9. Project leader and technical specialist in upgrade project from 2004 to 9.

I love the version 9 configuration feature. Its so easy/agile to make (in ifs 2004 measurements word adaption) configurations to adjust the software to better follow your process.  

Hi all,

I’m Ged Pierce, IT Manager at Unipart Powertrain Applications in Coventry (UK). We manufacture Fuel Tanks, Fuel Rails and Fuel Fillers for Tier 1 automotive customers such as Jaguar Land Rover.

I took over responsibility for IFS 7 in 2016 and had technical responsibility for our re-implementation of IFS 10 which went live in August 2019, making use of the improved functionality and capabilities of the new version.

I used to hate IFS, but now I love it! 

Hello All!

My name is Courtney Engel and I am a Service and Warranty Assistant/ IFS Super User

I have been the Service and Maintenance Specialist for both divisions of my company’s re-implementation team from IFS 7.5 to IFS 9.14 for the last two years. Before that I also worked with our IT department to stand up IFS Call Center for both divisions of our company’s Service department in 7.5. I have been using IFS for going on 6 years.

Zero Zone manufactures grocery store coolers and freezers along with Rack and Industrial refrigeration. Our service department is critical in helping technicians trouble shoot on the phones, sending warranty parts, and dispatching 3rd party service providers for program customers.

Located in Wisconsin.

Anywhere warm is my favorite place to go!

Hello Everyone,

My name is Daniel Decker.  I am a business analyst for a vitamin manufacturer in Scottsdale Arizona USA.

My experience with IFS is still in its beginnings, I have been working with IFS for just over 2 years now.  My focus is mostly on financials but I do have some experience with manufacturing.  We currently have a majority of our business entities on IFS app 8 SP2.  Some of our European entities are on IFS app 7.5.  We are about to implement 3 of our distribution companies onto IFS apps 10.

Hi Everyone,

my name is Michael Kaiser and I worked for IFS Germany from 1999 to 2001.
On the very first day - in these days the fair “Systems” in munich was still very important - my swedish colleage gave me call from munich and told me:
“Michael, we do not have anybody around who could show CRM (formerly known as IFS Sales & Marketing) and BI (in this times cognos series 7). Now you got your two new babies!!!”
Zoooooom, from this day on, I was the specialist for these two modules and a very happy father.

Within some months I digged deeper and deeper especially into BI because it was more fascinating than every other area I came across the 10 years before that.
In 2001 I left IFS and did some CRM and some cognos BI projects mainly on IFS basis.
We created STAS Control and were very focused on IFS customers.

Within 2002 private and business turmoils happened.
I got divorced, changed my flat and changed from cognos to Microsoft.
Don’t ask me what was the bigger deal!
From 2002 to the end of 2017 I did tons of BI projects on very differnt ERP systems.
SAP (this is swimming with the sharks!)
Baan (Major Tom, lost in Space)
JDE (could be worse than baan, but I had a brilliant copilot who speeks fluently JDEish.)
Infor (could hardly remember)
Navision and Axapta - now known as Microsoft Dynamics Nav and AX.
(my favorite ERP systems the last 10 to 15 years)

I always tried to stay in contact with my “old” german colleages and finally it pays off:
One of them gave me a call in Nov 2017 and in den beginning of Feb 2018 I started to work for a project “BI on IFS Applications” in the area of Stuttgart.
Since last year my team (3 other BI experts) and I  build specifications, DWH modells, cubes and beatiful designed PowerBI reports, even “beatiful designed” (just kidding!) IFS Quick Reports.

In May 2019 I founded a new company BiForUs GmbH & Co. KG with a very pointed focus.
Only companies who recently decided to buy and/or implement IFS Applicatons within the german speaking area (DACH = germany, austria and switzerland).
We estimate a number of 30 companies at most (for 2018, 2019 and 2020).

These companies struggling with implementing IFS (even if it is a great system) and asking
“How can we see “old” and new data in one report?” are what we are focused on in the coming years.

But to look forward taking with you guys. Everytime somebody is asking “how can we measure this or that? How can we improve?” I would love to join the conversation.
I’m always willing to learn and to share my knowledge.

Meanwhile happy easter (ooops new year, ooooops christmas time) and all the best to all of you.

Michael

PS:
Please feel free to contact me “the people on the river are happy to give” rollin, rolling….. :-)

Hello Michael, 

From all the presentations, yours is just waouh fun and facts! Looks live you already had at least 5 lives!

I am new to IFS … Just a few months. U get it right we just implemented and I work in the Service center ( user support)!

I take your word and will revert with my questions soon!

Happy and marvelous 2020year!! 

regards, 

Marcelle

Hi Marcelle,

you are very kind!
Do you believe in past lives? I didn’t believe in pastlives my last past live already! :-)

So who knows, perhaps I lived more than 5 lives already?

Do you know about the Debug Console? Shift+Ctrl+D.
I work with this tool every day and “listen” to the commands the GUI is sending to the ORACLE database. Even when you are not familiar with databases, views and tables just think about the knowledge you gain, when you know what happens when you search for a customer, an order or you
start a task with a rigth mouse button (RMB) task.

You start to get a bigger view about the system and the way things correspond.

At least it helps to ask better questions.

I’m looking forward to hear about your questions and promise:

There will be a lot of first “I don’t have any idea but…. very interesting question!”

All the best, happy new year and if you want, just tell me more about you.

regards

Michael
 

Hi All,

Good to be here on the forum.

After graduating I started my professional life as a sales engineer for a big machine building company.
As my career progressed within different companies, I somehow always managed to get involved in new or existing ICT projects, of increasing project team size and complexity.

About 1 year ago this led to a career switch into ICT consultancy;
I am enjoying this new direction in my career!

My name is Steve Hamilton (YYCSteve on the forum).  From the name, some might guess I am from Calgary, Canada.  I was born and raised here and even when I have left, I always seem to come back to the area.  Like many others these days, currently I work from my home when I am not on the road at a client site. 

I remember seeing my first computer when I was quite young - preschool age - my father worked for a large mainframe computer company at the time. I was fascinated and since then, I have gravitated to computer industry work or ‘the computer side’ of any business I have worked for.  I formally studied Photogrammetry in 1980-84 and later Electronics Engineering (1987-89), but also took various other programs on the side (Business Law, Communications, Organizational Behavior, to name a few). I try to be always learning something.      

I have held various roles in my career from Software and Hardware Sales and Support, Implementation Specialist, BRM/Business Analyst, Help Desk, Technology Manager/Team Lead, and Project Manager in a variety of industries (Navigation systems, Aviation maintenance, Local government, Healthcare, Pipelines, Oil & Gas Engineering/Design/Construction (EPC), Energy and Utilities) supporting and implementing various ERP and specialty software and hardware systems (SAP, JDE, SmartPlant, Aveva, to name a few). I have written programs but do not consider myself a programmer.  I tend to take on positions where I am helping others get value from their IT systems. 

My IFS title is “Solution Architect, A&D” and my focus since joining IFS has been with Maintenix implementations.  Starting this year I have been ramping up on IFS Apps 10 and Aurena to support the MRO business team.    

I like to travel (for business or pleasure) but have spent most of my travel time seeing North America (all 10 provinces of Canada and 39 of 50 US states so far).  I have been above the arctic circle and very near the equator; I stood at the prime meridian in Greenwich, and crossed the International date line in the Pacific but even that represents only one quarter of the Earth.  There is so much more to see.

Mike Arbon

System Administrator/DBA

I live in the UK nr Ipswich/Cambridge.

I have been supporting our IFS system (along with our other smaller systems) for 15 years. I have been administering Oracle databases for 20 years.

From delivering IFS basic training at each of our global sites, to being the internal technical lead on upgrading from IFS2003 to v7.5 to v9 and almost everything in between.

I have applied over 282 IFS patches across three versions, which I suspect is as close to childbirth as possible for a man! (of course it isn't, but you get where I am coming from).

I have worked on a few medium to large business systems and think IFS is the best one, helped along by the UK IFS Support team.

Regards

Mike

You can find me on https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikearbon

Daniel Suciu

Manager, Application Support, and Development at Reliance Home Comfort.

I live in Toronto, Canada but I am from Romania (Transylvania). Don’t be afraid I’m not a vampire . 

I have been supporting our FSM5.6.3 and PSO5.9 since early 2017 and now we are in the process of upgrading both systems to version 6 with a go live in about 2 months. 

Fun fact: I'm crazy about F1 (Ferrari), soccer (Liverpool) and basketball (GO Raptors GO!!!). 

Regards

Daniel. 

Less painful, but probably took a lot longer. 

Pankaj Gupta - Working on IFS Applications from Version 2001 onwards and now on IFS10.

I Work in India. Worked with IFS India for Over 12 years.

Now Working in One of the biggest technology company  and supporting One of the oldest IFS Client in Consumer Product Industry. Recently Upgraded IFS from 8 to 10UPD5.

Love to Drive and favorite book - 5 am club by Robin Sharma and 

Love to support any one who gets struck on IFS Technical Front.