EMS

EMS (Effective Management Systems) was started in the late 1970’s in Milwaukee, WI. Their product line was a complete ERP offering called TCM - Time Critical Manufacturing.

In March of 1995, EMS bought Intercim. Intercim offered complementary MES functions to the TCM product line. At the time of the acquisition the two companies had approximately 1,400 customers, with about $28M in revenues. EMS went public in 1994.

In 1999, EMS was purchased by Industrial & Financial Systems (IFS), an ERP company based out of Sweden. IFS acquired EMS to broaden their reach in the U.S. and also to convert existing TCM customers to the IFS product. The TCM base of customer however, were hesitant to change to the IFS product.

In 2001, Mike Dunham, one of the original founders of EMS, bought the company back from IFS. He started a new company, WorkWise, Inc. which was comprised of former EMS employees with a long history and experience with the TCM product line.

Today, Workwise, Inc. still markets the TCM product and has expanded its offerings to include CRM, Business Intelligence and web applications, as well as many feature/function enhancements to the core TCM product. The TCM product offering is available on the Windows Platform and WorkWise, Inc. continue to develop the product with an SQL .net release planned for 2007-2008.