Programme shape, waves and sequencing

The mode decision, dependency-ordered wave plan, team shape, RACI, discovery artefacts and go/no-go criteria for an Epicor Kinetic to D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management migration — including the ERP 10 double-hop decision and the Kinetic 2028.1 commercial clock.

What you will be able to do

Introduction

An Epicor Kinetic to D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management programme is shaped by five structural facts that distinguish it from most other ERP migration paths. The customisation surface is the dominant cost driver — not data volume, not user count, not module breadth.

The mode decision — big-bang versus phased

Epicor clients often default to a site-by-site phased rollout because that is how Epicor itself was rolled out — one plant at a time, over months or years. Whether that remains appropriate for the D365 migration depends on three structural questions:

The dependency-ordered wave plan

Waves are referential-dependency groupings, not calendar periods. Each wave's data depends on the prior wave being loaded and reconciled. The eight-wave model used across this site applies to Epicor as follows:

Discovery artefacts that gate design

No design commitment is credible until these artefacts exist. Each is a named deliverable with a named owner:

The ERP 10 double-hop decision

A client still running the Classic (Smart Client) UI with active ERP 10 C# client-side scripts faces a specific structural question that must be answered in discovery, not deferred to build:

The Kinetic 2028.1 commercial clock

Epicor has publicly announced that Kinetic 2028.1 (tentatively January 2028) is the final on-premises feature release:

Team shape and RACI

Customer Epicor application owner — the person who knows what the Epicor system actually does today: GL Control configuration, segment definitions, books, the customisation inventory, the UI state, the integration landscape. Without this role, every design decision is made against the playbook rather than against reality.

Go/no-go criteria

Reconciliation gate_status = PASS for every concept in the wave. DMF rejects = zero. No unresolved Severity-1 defects. Engine-lead sign-off.

Duration and shape — an honest range

An Epicor Kinetic to D365 programme of medium complexity (one to three legal entities, 50–150 BAQs, 30–80 BPMs, 5–15 Epicor Functions, modest multi-book, one to two manufacturing sites) typically runs 14–22 months from discovery start to hypercare exit:

Knowledge check

Summary

The programme shape for an Epicor Kinetic to D365 migration is driven by the customisation surface, the financial architecture decisions (segment compression, multi-book, GL Controls), the MOM decomposition, and the ERP 10 lineage question.