BLCG
BLCG International
ERMCO-ECI
Confidential

Shopify B2B MVP for ERMCO-ECI

E-commerce connected to your Infor LN. Product catalog, B2B pricing, and order management, integrated with your ERP from day one.
Prepared for ERMCO-ECI | By BLCG International LLC | April 2026
1
Understanding Your MVP
1 min
This is a deliberately constrained, temporary MVP. The point is to experiment and learn, not to stand up a production commerce platform. Success is a clean experiment with minimal long-term risk, not speed or feature depth.

What We Heard

ERMCO-ECI is using Shopify Plus to run a focused experiment around B2B digital ordering for dry-type transformers. The MVP exists solely to determine whether further investment is justified. Long term, as ERPs consolidate onto Infor LN, future digital experiences will leverage Infor Rhythm. The MVP must not block or bias that path.

How We Will Show Up on Friday

This document is structured around your eight discovery agenda points. For each, we want to confirm your guardrails, share how we would approach it, and surface the risks worth discussing. No pitch deck. No 120 engineers. Alignment and risk discovery, in your words.

Our Operating Principle for This MVP Build the smallest defensible thing that lets ERMCO learn whether B2B digital ordering for dry-type transformers is worth investing in further, while leaving no artifact that constrains the future Infor Rhythm path.
2
Scope Guardrails
1 min

Mirroring your Apr 6 framing back to confirm we are on the same page before Friday.

In Scope

  • Shopify Plus as storefront and experience layer
  • Published product catalog for dry-type transformers
  • Customers browse freely, ordering restricted
  • Customer request and vetting flow, customers created in legacy ERP before ordering is enabled
  • File-based, periodic imports from ERP for product data (and possibly read-only inventory)
  • External payment processor inside Shopify to capture payment or payment intent at order time

Explicitly Out of Scope

  • No real-time or transactional ERP integration
  • No automated order flow into ERP (orders remain manual)
  • No attempt to make Shopify a system of record
  • No bidirectional dependency that would require unwinding before a future Rhythm migration
What This Means for Delivery Every design decision gets tested against two questions: does it serve the experiment, and does it stay reversible? If a feature would lock ERMCO into a Shopify-shaped data model or workflow that Rhythm cannot inherit, we leave it out.
3
MVP Architecture
1 min

Three layers, one direction of travel, no real-time coupling. The boundary between Shopify and your legacy ERP is a file drop, by design.

Legacy ERP

System of record. Customers, products, prices, orders, financials. All ordering and financial handling stays here.

→
File Bridge

Periodic, scheduled exports. Product master and (optionally) read-only inventory. One-way: ERP to Shopify.

→
Shopify Plus

Storefront, catalog, customer accounts, gating logic, payment capture via external processor. No write-back to ERP.

Future State (Out of MVP Scope)

Infor Rhythm, once the LN consolidation is complete. The MVP must not produce any data contracts or workflows that complicate that migration.

Order and payment data flows are handled manually inside the legacy ERP. Shopify never writes back.

Why a File Bridge, Not an API

A real-time API would create exactly the kind of bidirectional dependency you said you do not want. A file bridge is boring on purpose: it is observable, replayable, easy to throw away, and trivial to map to a different source system on day one of a Rhythm migration.

4
Catalog Modeling for Dry-Type Transformers
1 min

Dry-type transformers carry meaningful configuration: kVA rating, voltage class, winding, enclosure, connection type, certifications. The challenge is exposing enough of that for customers to find what they need, without embedding ERP logic inside Shopify.

Modeling Principles

  • Catalog, not configurator. The MVP publishes a flat catalog of finished goods that already exist in the ERP. No build-to-order configuration logic in Shopify.
  • Filter on attributes, not formulas. Customers filter by kVA, voltage, enclosure rating, and similar fixed attributes. Anything that requires a calculation belongs in the ERP and is left for the manual order step.
  • Specs as data, not as content. Each product attribute is a structured metafield in Shopify (sourced from the file export), so the storefront can filter, sort, and display it consistently and we can swap the source later without touching the storefront.
  • Hidden engineering data stays hidden. Anything that exists in the ERP purely for production or planning is not exported.

Worked Example

A 75 kVA, 480V primary, 208Y/120V secondary, NEMA 3R enclosure transformer becomes a single Shopify product with structured metafields for kVA, primary voltage, secondary voltage, enclosure rating, weight, lead time tier, and certifications. The customer filters by those attributes, finds the unit, requests it, and the order is handled manually in the ERP. Nothing in Shopify needs to know that a 75 kVA unit is built differently from a 50 kVA unit.

5
Customer Request and Gating Flow
1 min

The flow keeps interest, approval, and account authority cleanly separated, so ERMCO controls who can actually order.

  1. Browse without login. Anyone can land on the storefront, browse the catalog, and see specs. No account required, no pricing visible.
  2. Request access. Interested visitors fill in a structured request (company, contact, intended product line, account if existing). This creates a prospect record in Shopify only.
  3. ERMCO vets and approves in the legacy ERP. Your team reviews the request, runs whatever credit and account checks you already do, and decides whether to enable ordering. The ERP remains the authority.
  4. Customer activated via the file bridge. Approved customers are exported back to Shopify as activated B2B accounts with the right entitlements. Rejected ones simply never show up.
  5. Customer can place orders. Once active, the customer can submit orders in Shopify. The order details flow into the manual queue your team already runs in the ERP.
Why This Matters The gating flow is the part of the MVP that most directly tests ERMCO's central question: will B2B buyers actually self-serve through a digital channel, and is that signal strong enough to invest further? Everything else exists to support that experiment.
6
Payments and Manual Financial Handling
1 min

Payment capture happens in Shopify via an external processor. Everything financial after that is handled inside your existing ERP processes. We design the handover so it does not create work.

What Happens at Order Time

  • The customer selects products and submits an order in Shopify.
  • An external payment processor (configured inside Shopify) captures payment or a payment intent at the moment of order. The processor is the source of truth for the transaction.
  • Shopify holds the order in a "pending ERP entry" state. Nothing flows to the ERP automatically.

What the ERP Team Sees

  • A consolidated view of pending orders, each with the full set of details ERMCO already captures today: customer reference, line items, unit references, quantities, requested ship date, notes, and the payment processor reference.
  • An export-friendly format (CSV / PDF / structured email) so order details can be transcribed into Infor LN as part of the existing manual process, with nothing missing.
  • A clear payment processor reference on every order so accounting can reconcile against the processor without chasing down two systems.
Design Goal Manual ERP entry should take less time than the equivalent phone or email order does today, not more. If the handover does not save time for ERMCO operations, the MVP has failed even if the storefront looks great.
7
Designing for Reversibility
1 min

The MVP must not block or bias the future Infor Rhythm path. We treat that as a hard design constraint, not an afterthought.

Assumptions We Will Not Make

  • That Shopify owns any piece of master data that the ERP cannot regenerate.
  • That Shopify-specific data structures (collections, metafield naming, customer tags) leak into the ERP side.
  • That the file bridge becomes a permanent integration. It is sized to be thrown away.
  • That any process inside ERMCO operations gets restructured around Shopify before the experiment has earned that.

Artifacts We Will Leave Behind

Every artifact is written so it survives a Rhythm migration intact, or is trivial to discard without consequences:

ArtifactWhy It Survives Rhythm
Catalog schema (attribute model for dry-type transformers)It is a description of your products, not of Shopify. Rhythm can consume the same shape.
File export contract (fields, format, frequency, ownership)Source-system agnostic. Repointing to Rhythm is a one-day change.
Customer gating ruleset (criteria for enabling B2B ordering)Lives as a documented business rule, not as Shopify configuration.
Payment capture log format (processor reference + order reference)Independent of storefront. Reconciliation logic carries over to any future channel.
Experiment results (what worked, what did not, signal strength)The actual deliverable of the MVP. Informs the Rhythm investment case directly.
What This Means for ERMCO If the experiment fails, you walk away with a clean documentation set and no integration debt. If it succeeds, you walk into the Rhythm conversation with a real-world data contract and real-customer evidence already in hand.
8
Your Team for This Discovery
1 min

Four people from our side for the Friday call. Each has a specific lane on this MVP.

Lennart Hector

Lennart Hector

Co-Managing Director, Account Management
ERMCO account owner. 13+ years ERP consulting for industrial manufacturers. Will frame the experiment, structure the engagement, and own the reversibility story toward Infor Rhythm.
Richard Weiher

Richard Weiher

Co-Managing Director, Consulting Practice
Heads our consulting practice and delivery. Will speak to how we structure this as a clean experiment and how the team scales up or down based on what the MVP signals.
MR

Mahendra Reddy

Technical Lead, Shopify and Storefront
Owns the Shopify build: catalog modeling for complex transformer products, customer gating flow, external payment processor integration. Will speak to how we keep the storefront free of ERP logic.
Heiko Steinbach

Heiko Steinbach

Infor LN and Integration Lead
Owns the file-based bridge: product and inventory exports, ownership model, reversibility. Brings the Infor LN perspective on a future Rhythm path.
9
Why BLCG
1 min
13+
Years in ERP Consulting
80+
Projects Delivered
6
Countries
40+
Industrial Clients

What Sets Us Apart for This MVP

We know what is behind the storefront

13 years of Infor LN consulting for industrial manufacturers, across 80+ engagements. We know the LN data model, the pricing logic, the order processing workflows. When we agree on what a file export should contain, we are not guessing what your ERP can produce, we are designing against systems we have lived inside since 2013.

Industrial manufacturing is all we do

Every one of our clients is an industrial manufacturer. We speak your language: BOMs, configured items, customer-specific pricing, multi-site fulfillment, compliance requirements. This is not a side project for us. It is our entire business.

Built to hand off to Infor Rhythm

Most Shopify partners build for Shopify. We build knowing Rhythm is coming. Every catalog schema, gating rule, file export contract, and payment capture log we leave behind is one that Rhythm can inherit on day one. The MVP becomes a head start on the Rhythm investment case, not a tax on it.

10
References
1 min

All references below are active Infor LN manufacturing customers. We work with companies across North America and Europe.

Selected References

Tsurumi (Europe) GmbH

Industrial Pumps

Infor LN support, digitalization, AI Product Assistant pilot, e-invoicing integration.

Trojan Technologies

Water Treatment (Canada)

Multi-site Infor LN, cloud migration, ERP training program, knowledge management evaluation.

IMA Schelling

Woodworking Machinery

Infor LN optimization, custom development, ERP extensions for complex manufacturing.

ARI Armaturen

Industrial Valves

Four parallel integration projects, cloud migration, process optimization.

More Customers from Industrial Manufacturing

BAE Systems Liebherr Kesseböhmer Containex J.G. Anschuetz Calanbau Neudorff BeA

40+ customers served, 30+ in industrial manufacturing across North America and Europe.

11
Discovery Call - Friday, April 10
2 min
Friday, April 10 at 9:45 AM Central (10:45 AM Eastern). Thirty minutes. Alignment and risk discovery, in your eight points. Below is how we plan to engage on each.
  1. 1. Confirm MVP scope and guardrails We will play back your in-scope / out-of-scope lists (Section 2 above) and confirm there is no daylight between us before we discuss any of the rest.
  2. 2. Intentional use of Shopify Plus for a constrained, temporary portal What we would use now (storefront, catalog, gating, payment capture) versus what we would explicitly defer (pricing logic, transactional integration, anything Shopify-proprietary on the data side) and the reasoning behind each.
  3. 3. Product catalog modeling for dry-type transformers Catalog, not configurator. Filter on attributes, not formulas. Specs as structured metafields sourced from the export, not as marketing content. Section 4 has the worked example we will walk through.
  4. 4. File-based ERP integration approach Product master and (optionally) read-only inventory via periodic, scheduled exports. One direction. ERP-owned. Sized to be thrown away. We will walk through ownership, frequency, and how we avoid creating a dependency.
  5. 5. Customer request, vetting, and gating flow The five-step flow in Section 5: browse without login, request access, ERMCO vets in the legacy ERP, customer activated via the file bridge, customer can place orders. Interest, approval, and account authority stay separated.
  6. 6. Payments and manual financial handling External payment processor inside Shopify, payment or payment intent captured at order time, order details structured for friction-free manual ERP entry. Reconciliation against the processor reference, not through two systems.
  7. 7. Designing for reversibility and future Infor Rhythm alignment The assumptions we will not make and the artifacts we will leave behind (Section 7). This is the test we hold every design decision against.
  8. 8. Wrap-up and next steps If there is mutual fit, we propose a one-week paid scoping sprint that turns this document into a costed work plan and a defined experiment. Time-boxed, fixed price, walk-away optional at the end.
Joining the Call From our side: Lennart Hector, Richard Weiher, Mahendra Reddy, Heiko Steinbach. Each owns a specific lane, see Section 8.
Lennart Hector
Co-Managing Director, Account Management
l.hector@blconsultingservice.com
+1 (407) 459-3943
BLCG International

BLCG International LLC | ERP Consulting and Digital Transformation for Industrial Manufacturers

This document is confidential and intended solely for internal use at ERMCO-ECI. Distribution to third parties requires written consent from BLCG International LLC.