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5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

You might be reading this post if you are researching Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC), your company needs to become compliant, or your company is already compliant with CMMC but you have need of more IT services. In 2019 the Department of Defense announced a new cybersecurity protocol named CMMC that all DoD contractors (and some of their supply chains) would need to adhere to starting in 2020. There are 5 Levels of CMMC Certification, and EstesGroup can be an asset to companies in any of the levels.

 

5 Ways EstesGroup Helps with Your CMMC Compliance

  1. EstesGroup helps you identify the technology and/or services you need to meet your CMMC Level Requirements.  
  2. EstesGroup can improve your Process Maturity by helping evaluate your Procedures, Policies, or Practices. Once we’ve reviewed those processes, we can help update them to ensure you meet your CMMC Level and other compliance requirements. 
  3. There are 17 Domains that CMMC is built on. EstesGroup has the experience, tools, and services to support your business across nearly all of these domains.  
    • EstesGroup routinely deploys tools and managed services that directly support these CMMC domains: 
      • Access Control, Asset Management, Audit and Accountability, Configuration Management, Identification and Authentication, Maintenance, Recovery, Risk Management, Security Assessment, Situational Awareness, Systems and Communications Protection, and System and Information Integrity. 
    • EstesGroup can consult on and support technology used in these domains as well, but these domains typically require internal personnel or a third party on-site.  
      • Awareness and Training, Incident Response, Media Protection, Personnel Security, Physical Protection, and Risk Management 
  4. EstesGroup Managed Services (ERP Hosting ECHO & Managed IT) employ many of the standard Cybersecurity measures required for CMMC. We regularly monitor our internal and client assets for threats, perform preventative maintenance, and update technology or processes to meet or exceed cybersecurity requirements.  
  5. EstesCloud Hosting (ECHO) services enable many CMMC requirements without significant impact to you, your users, or your bottom line. By hosting your servers or software solutions in a managed cloud environment, you can compartmentalize your compliant systems and protect them at the highest CMMC levels, without locking down your whole office. For more details, see our page on EstesCloud Hosting for Aerospace & Defense  

 

 

To Learn about CMMC, read our blog What is CMMC: Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification?”

 

EstesGroup is a Managed Services Provider working with Manufacturing and Distribution companies by providing ERP Hosting (ECHO), Managed IT, Epicor ERP, and Prophet 21 ERP services.

 

Have questions about CMMC or do you want more information on how EstesGroup makes companies more secure? Contact us today!

 

Overcoming Industry Challenges with Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing ERP

Overcoming Industry Challenges with Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing ERP

The A&D industry is facing growth and dynamic change. In striving for quality and status, it is facing challenges in maintaining both. From the procurement of raw materials to the introduction of new technologies that will impact production (and everything in between), there are industry-specific challenges that manufacturers must face. Fortunately, there is ERP software that has been developed for use in the Aerospace and Defense Manufacturing industry that can help with those challenges.


AS9100 and ITAR Compliance (Dynamic Compliance):

The rigorous demands of the regulatory environment aren’t going to go away anytime soon. Your ERP software has regulatory features built-in throughout, providing you with enhanced traceability and audit management that not only assists you in achieving compliance but helps you prove that you’re compliant, as well.

Supply Chain Risk Management:

An A&D company’s supply chain is always at risk due to factors such as unexpected shifts in demand, last-minute design changes, and even political shifts that can make it difficult to procure the raw materials you need. Your manufacturing ERP can provide you with the visibility of your supply chain that you need to monitor, respond to, and manage supply changes throughout the production cycle.

Supply Chain Complexity Creep:

Introducing new technology into your production cycle can result in what’s known as supply chain complexity creep. This is a slowdown of your work processes as workers learn the new technology and master its integration into the supply chain. Your ERP for A&D manufacturing helps to alleviate complexity creep by providing you with the ability to monitor and analyze the data generated from every step of the process so you can make quick decisions based on real-time information.

Product Lifecycle Management (PLM):

In an industry as complex as A&D manufacturing, you need the ability to manage all of the information required at every stage of the product’s lifecycle in order to manage your processes cost-effectively and within compliance. Your ERP system should provide powerful PLM capabilities to handle a massive range of processes and even the longest of product lifecycles.


The Aerospace & Defense sector has particularly complex processes that are marked by stringent regulations, rapid changes, and intricate engineering. Thankfully, EstesGroup has your need for a highly adaptable ERP system covered. For more information, contact us.

All Licensed Up with No Place to Code – Making the Most of your Service Connect Investment

During the rush to select, acquire, and implement an ERP application, companies often license modules that they do not end up utilizing by the time cutover rolls around. Once the booming, buzzing confusion of going live has diminished, companies frequently review their suite of modules to determine whether some second phase enhancements can be implemented, both to benefit their organizations and to make use of the money spent on licensure. Epicor’s Service Connect application often falls into this second-phase category. It is not uncommon for Epicor customers, fresh off an implementation, to come to us and ask, “So we own Service Connect—now what is it good for?”

Service Connect is a multi-purpose tool in which a user can automate business processes and create application integrations to aid a business in its day-to-day processing. By using documents as its primary interface, Service Connect can convert data from one application into a form another application (or internal process) can understand. It uses industry-wide technologies to exchange information between applications or business processes based on data mappings and data manipulation.

A business may benefit from the use of Service Connect for many reasons. Some reasons include:

  • To automate an internal process by removing the human interaction from a process. For example, a company might use Service Connect to automate the entry of a Sales Order, based on an external trigger, or have the lines of a Sales Order automatically ship when the Sales Order has been closed.
  • To have one application pass information to another application, in order for the second application to process the data. An example of this would be billing information from a project tracking application to an accounting application. This would allow Accounting to bill for services rendered on the project.
  • To respond back to an application with updated data after a business process has been completed. This would keep two unrelated applications in sync. For example, if an item were to be requested to be shipped in an inventory application, the data would be passed to a shipping application to be shipped, then once shipped the tracking number would be returned to the inventory application.
  • To send emails requesting tasks be executed before another step of a business process can be completed. An example of this would be sending an email to a Purchase Order manager to approve a Purchase Order over a specific amount.
  • To assign tasks to be completed to users, to help manage the flow of a business process. By using Service Connect Task Monitor, instead of emails, a task can be assigned to a specific user and the business process halted until the user completes the task. This could be used for setting up project service billings approvals or Personal Time Off requests.

The automation and orchestration capabilities of Service Connect improve processes within the Epicor application and improve interactions between the Epicor application and other applications.  Customers in need of such capabilities find that by dusting off their Service Connect license and connecting with some skilled partners, they can extend the scope of their enterprise application and yield tangible business benefits in so doing.  The Estes Group has a wide breadth and depth of experience in Service Connect, and has been helping customers to get the most out of their investment.  Looking to take your enterprise application to the next level?  Come check us out—we’d love to talk with you and see what’s possible.