Moving from Systems of Record to Systems of Action

QAD Adaptive and Champion AI Briefing Note

QAD Leadership including Tom Roberts, Vice President of Strategic Industry Development and Robyn Coward, Life Sciences Director, outlined the company’s release of QAD Adaptive and Champion AI.

The company has come a long way From Flip Flops To The Cloud! The Briefing highlighted how QAD has repositioned itself to address persistent industry challenges by shifting from systems of record to systems of action.

Industry Context

Life Science organizations are under increasing pressure to deliver high quality products that improve patient outcomes while protecting margins and meeting regulatory requirements.

At the same time, manufacturers across industries face stagnant productivity despite successive waves of technological innovation. “In fact, in the last15 years, there has been no net improvement in productivity. Even with the advent of all those great technologies,” observed Roberts.

This reality underscores the need for integrated approaches that combine operational excellence, sustainability, and compliance. “From a life sciences perspective, the customers will receive advance notice of future feature enhancements so they can comply with validation requirements,” adds Coward. Her comment highlights QAD’s recognition of the unique regulatory environment in which life sciences organizations operate.

From Systems of Record to Systems of Action

QAD emphasized the importance of moving beyond transactional recordkeeping to actionable intelligence. Traditional ERP systems excel at documenting transactions but often fail to provide predictive insights or the ability to take action based on those insights.

Roberts explained: “I created a scheduled order. I can see that I created a journal entry. I can see that I created scrap. But now I need to have something that’s telling me why it happened. And how I can predict it, and maybe how I can prevent certain activities that are non-beneficial.”

“This distinction between systems of record and systems of action is critical. Systems of record provide visibility, but systems of action enable intervention,” he added. Champion AI is designed as an overlay product that bridges this gap, offering predictive and preventive capabilities across the enterprise.

Platform Enhancements

QAD Adaptive introduces a series of platform enhancements designed to improve usability, strengthen integration, and deliver operational efficiency. These updates reflect QAD’s commitment to moving beyond incremental changes in architecture toward features that directly address customer pain points.

Roberts emphasized: “These enhancements are not simply incremental updates; QAD Adaptive is a strategic shift toward enabling organizations to act on data in real time.”

Key Enhancements include:

Integration Platform (Boomi): Seamless connectivity across ERP, shop floor, and third-party systems.
Web UI: All daily operational flows now accessible via web, improving usability.
Production Scheduling: Advanced scheduling with graphical Gantt charts and drag-and-drop functionality.
Warehousing: Integrated warehousing functionality within the core ERP for tighter inventory and order management.

Champion AI

Champion AI represents QAD’s most ambitious step toward embedding intelligence into enterprise systems. Rather than serving as a standalone module, Champion AI is designed as an overlay that integrates across the QAD suite.

Roberts underscored: “We’re really excited about the capabilities that we already have and are continuing to build around this.”

Champion AI is structured around four pillars:

Core AI Platform: Generative AI, retrieval augmented generation, machine learning, agentic access, and guardrails.
Agentic AI Business Cases: Inventory optimization, sourcing optimization, and costing analysis.
Productivity Agents: Automation of repetitive ERP tasks..
Implementation Agents: Tools to streamline ERP implementation and data migration.

Roberts explained: “There’s a lot of tasks that have to be done in ERP. They are necessary. But… with some automation, they could take a lot of repetitive action out of our users’ hands.”

Champion AI’s Knowledge Assist provides contextual support through intuitive chat, voice interaction, and feedback loops. Roberts explained: “Help me run a supplier performance report. And then we have a feedback loop to help QAD get better. Thumbs up or thumbs down for the answer that is given.”

This functionality is designed to improve user experience while ensuring that AI outputs remain relevant and accurate. It also supports continuous improvement, enabling QAD to refine its AI capabilities based on customer feedback. (Read: The Expanding Role of AI in Life Sciences: Axendia’s New AI in Life Sciences Market Research)

The acquisition of Kavida further strengthens Champion AI capabilities, particularly in procurement and sales. Roberts noted: “It gives us an 18-24 month jumpstart in these areas.”

Roadmap and Strategy

QAD clarified its strategic pivot from O3 to Adaptive, focusing on seamless upgrades and customer-centric functionality. As Roberts stated: “The term O3 needs to pass into the annals of history. That is not the direction any longer… we want to increase the capability to deliver features and functionality, and we want to get to those seamless upgrades.”

Adaptive is positioned as a cloud-first offering, with ERP updates delivered twice a year and more frequent cycles for agentic AI workflows.

Robyn Coward reinforced that “We will provide advanced notice to Life Sciences customers regarding future feature enhancements.” This approach reflects QAD’s sensitivity to regulatory requirements and validation effort, helping to ensure that customers can adopt innovations without compromising compliance.

AI Validation and Regulatory Considerations

Validation of AI in regulated industries remains a pressing concern. QAD acknowledged the challenge of ensuring consistent outputs across generative AI systems.

Coward acknowledged that as AI regulatory guidance in the U.S. and EU regulations reflect the growing emphasis on Computer Software Assurance (CSA) and there will be expectations that vendors support readiness for validation. (Read: FDA CSA Just Removed Your Excuses for Implementing Modern Technology )

For regulators, consistency of outputs is critical. For customers, vendor accountability is essential. QAD’s strategy provides customers with choice, in light of expedited guardrails. (Listen: “AI in Life Sciences: The Next Regulatory Frontier“

In Brief

QAD Adaptive and Champion AI represent a strategic pivot toward actionable intelligence. By embedding AI-driven agents, integrated scheduling, and warehousing, QAD seeks to address long-standing productivity challenges. The overlay architecture, strengthened by the Kavida acquisition, extends QAD’s reach beyond its suite, enabling integration with external systems.

For life sciences, QAD’s release cadence reflects sensitivity to CSA and validation burdens. QAD’s focus on systems of action, agentic AI, and seamless upgrades aligns with industry imperatives for agility, reliability, sustainability, and compliance.

We will continue to provide updates on QAD as they become available.

To discuss how this initiative impacts your organization, click on this link to schedule an Analyst Inquiry on this topic.

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The opinions and analysis expressed in this post reflect the judgment of Axendia at the time of publication and are subject to change without notice. Information contained in this post is current as of publication date. Information cited is not warranted by Axendia but has been obtained through a valid research methodology. This post is not intended to endorse any company or product and should not be attributed as such.