Who is Bill Gaw?
And why should we
listen to him?
Lean
Enterprise Articles
|
If you're concerned about your
company's future... YOUR FUTURE... . |
Improve
your resume and prepare |
Strategic ERP Implementation
Part 4 of 4
Lean Manufacturing, Basics, Principles, Techniques
For help in your search
for a new career:
Lean Management Jobs
For my latest Goggle.Knol article:
Click Here
To
review our training
programs, click on
the links below:
Manufacturing Production Process
Operations Supply Chain Management
Other Options:
Production Manufacturing
Thinking Outside
the Box
Performance
Management Process
Performance
Management Training
Lean Manufacturing Implementation
Lean Manufacturing Improvement
Manufacturing Supply Chain Management
Purchasing Supply Chain Management
|
Strong Technical, Systems Programming/Database Administration (DBA) Capabilities Are Needed, at Least for a System as Complex and Flexible as Oracle There are numerous tables, parameters, and security to set up and maintain, software versions and patches to control, for various system and database "instances." A good DBA is also a consulting resource to IT, users, and management. Conventional wisdom says that modern software packages take most of the technical risk out of an implementation. Conventional wisdom is incorrect. Unless we tackled technical issues head on, such as system setup, multisite definition, library/version control, conversion, etc., it would have meant trouble. Technical factors became a non-issue precisely because we did apply the resources to deal with them. We relied heavily upon outside resources in the beginning and gradually tapered these off as we built the skills in-house. We need to continue to broaden the skills base to ensure that multiple in-house employees can handle critical technical tasks, a common aspiration in mid-sized Information Technology departments. The company was successful in building an effective Oracle RDBMS/UNIX/Oracle Apps, technical capability, scaled appropriately for maintaining a "vanilla" version of the system. It took more people than we would have liked. Ensure Data Accuracy Formal ERP systems are very sensitive to data accuracy. We had to make big improvements prior to implementation. Even though our outside auditor blessed our overall numbers prior to implementation, these still did not meet our far more rigorous internal standards. We are only now approaching world-class standards in most areas, but actually slipped in one area after a reorganization, spurring a rededication to data accuracy. In the future, we will conduct rigorous quarterly internal inventory accuracy audits and look at other areas as well. We are simultaneously trying to reduce dependency on formal data accuracy by moving to more visual control approaches and quick reaction systems. Minimize Software Modifications Everyone we knew in other companies making major changes to a software package ended up spending huge amounts of money and time and often had maintenance and operational problems. We learned from their experiences, made minimal changes, and had minimal problems. Control the Scope Although there were people who wanted us to do a lot more, most of us agree that scope control helped to get the job done cheaper and faster than it would have otherwise. It would have really stretched things out and jeopardized the results if our plate had been even more full than it Have Contingency Plans After seeing and hearing about others' past disasters, we developed a contingency plan for what to do if the implementation failed, and what to do when the system crashes—for an hour, a day, a week, or longer. There is also an alternate backup site in place. We can always improve with an ongoing readiness audit. Have a Go/No Go Decision Point We did it and are glad we did. We waved off the implementation date twice because we wanted additional preparation. By the third time, we knew what to look for, knew what we needed, and, to some extent, even knew what it was we didn't know. We made a list of the outstanding issues that had to be resolved before we would go live with the implementation and worked them hard, as a team. A couple of months' delay is insignificant compared to years of pain from a failed implementation. Never implement until your people are confident and ready. Other A few additional hints—Don't put up the latest version of the vendor's software, no matter how they praise its virtues. Major ERP packages are never perfect—ESPECIALLY major new releases. Let others debug it for you, even if it means waiting a little longer for some bells and whistles. We took the conservative route and avoided much agony. Make sure you have key management reports in place before going live. We didn't have them all and paid the price. Make sure a critical mass is trained in report writing. We didn't, but when offering training the second time around, classes were "sold out" immediately. Don't scrimp on hardware resources. You'll get punished more for bad system performance than for spending too much on hardware. Once we eliminated a few bottlenecks in testing, performance became a non-issue. Establish specific systems performance objectives, get commitments to them in writing. Reward contributors any way you can—with praise, training, coveted team assignments, promotions, etc. Your good people are your finest asset. EPILOGUE The new system went live on 4 January 1999 and we never looked back. There were only two serious problems. (1) Bugs in order entry slowed us down. Better testing and documentation of results would have mitigated this problem. (2) In addition, an administrative problem resulted in a number of blanket vendor purchase orders not being put on the system for weeks, screwing up purchasing and inventory records for the duration. We had our first
major system crash in March 1999. Recovery procedures took nearly a
day, but restoration resulted in zero lost data, using the
task-level recovery features of the system. The reengineering
effort seems to be more of a gradual, continuous improvement
approach. It needs to move faster. This will take more emphasis and
rededication. There are lots more things that we can do to improve.
Other important projects seem to present even better opportunities
at this time. STAY CONNECTED To stay current on Lean Management Basics and Best Practices, subscribe to our weekly MBBP Bulletin... and we'll send you our PowerPoint presentation "How to Survive in an Entirely New Economy." All at no cost of course. Your personal information will never be disclosed to any third party. privacy policy
Here's
what one of our 13,000 plus subscribers "Great manufacturing articles. Thanks for the insights. I often share portions of your articles with my staff and they too enjoy them and fine aspects where they can integrate points into their individual areas of responsibilities. Thanks again." Kerry B. Stephenson. President. KALCO Lighting, LLC "Back to Basics" Training for anyone ... anywhere ... anytime Business
Basics, LLC © 2001-2009 Business Basics, LLC |