Effective Success with Enterprise Resource Planning_9 pptx

deal to order parts. They won’t take the time to learn about ERP, nor will they authorize an audit/assessment. A Proven Path implementa- tion on a company-wide basis is just not in the cards. The solution here could be a Proven Path implementation on a Quick-Slice basis. Quick Slice is low dollars, low risk, high return, quick results. It just might get their attention. It did at Engelhard Industries Chemical Group in Great Britain. The project leader there, Andy Coldrick, 1 made it happen on a Quick-Slice basis. In so doing, he and his team demonstrated to sen- ior management the enormous power of what was then called Man- ufacturing Resource Planning. Once they saw it with their own eyes, they were convinced. They then proceeded to lead a company-wide implementation with Class A results. 5. Jumbo-sized company. Companies 2 whose head count is well into the thousands typically have a more difficult time implementing ERP (or just about any other major improvement initiative, for that matter). The reason is, simply, more people—more layers in the organization, more com- munications interfaces, more competing initiatives underway, more opportunities for people not to get on board, more time required to make things happen, and so on. The Quick-Slice approach dramatically reduces the size of the ef- fort. One can “get one’s arms around” an organization of a few dozen or even a few hundred people, and things can happen quickly. Obviously, the first slice would be followed by another and another and another. 6. We’re unique; we’re different. Let’s say the company is in a somewhat specialized industry; per- haps it makes widgets. The company thinks it may want to imple- ment ERP, but it’s not sure. The reason: No one in the widget 274 ERP: M I H 1 One of the pioneers of Quick-Slice ERP and formerly managing director of Oliver Wight, UK. 2 Specific business units, not necessarily entire corporations. business has ever tried ERP. Management is reluctant to invest big bucks until they can see it working. Quick-Slice ERP provides the opportunity to do this quickly and with very little cost. 7. Bleeding from the neck. The company is in dire financial straits and needs help quickly: negative cash flow, red ink, rapidly eroding market share, whatever. Survival may be at issue. Although ERP may clearly be the answer, there might be too little time left for the company to take the 15 to 20 months necessary for a company-wide implementation. Quick Slice, on the other hand, gives major results in a short time. One of the earliest documented implementations of this type oc- curred for exactly this reason. i The Quick-Slice approach saved the company. 8. Others. There are probably other good reasons that mitigate for a Quick- Slice approach to implementation. One might be: “Why not?” Why not do it this way? It’s fast; it’s low dollars; it’s low risk; it generates big results. Here’s what we recommend: When evaluating whether or not to do a Quick-Slice implementation, don’t ask yourselves: “Why should we do it?” Ask yourselves: “Why not?” Start from there. Are there any reasons not to do Quick Slice? Yes, there are a few: 1. No logical slice. This could be a company whose products, components, raw mate- rials and manufacturing processes are highly interwoven. There may be no valid way to “slice out” a product family. 2. Unable to create flow manufacturing. This is the process analog of the prior case. There are a few com- panies—job shops—with such a multiplicity of work centers and Quick-Slice ERP—Overview 275 such low unit production volumes that creating cellular flow manu- facturing may be next to impossible. 3. Two systems. The company will be operating with the new ERP processes on the slice product(s) and components, and with the current system on the rest. This will continue until all of ERP has been implemented on all of the business. It can be awkward. Further, some companies and in- dustries have stringent reporting requirements to their customers, their owners, regulatory agencies, and others; compliance may be difficult when using two different sets of business processes for an ex- tended time. 4. Very small company. This is the flip side of the jumbo company mentioned earlier. In a very small organization, the difference in elapsed time between com- pany wide and Quick Slice may be very little. This could mitigate for doing it all at once. 5. Lack of urgency. Implementing Quick Slice is intense because of the time pressures to get results quickly. If a strong sense of urgency isn’t present, Quick Slice won’t be the best way to go. More on urgency in a moment. 6. Longer (maybe) to Class A. Using Quick Slice will, at least in theory, take longer to reach Class A ERP. Consider the following Quick-Slice implementation: Step Time Implement first slice 4 months Implement second slice 3 months 3 Implement third slice 3 months 276 ERP: M I H 3 We’re assuming a bit of a learning curve effect here. The company is now almost one year into implementation. They’re getting enormous benefits from what they’ve done. However, they still don’t have all of their products and components on the sys- tem, nor have they implemented all the functions of ERP. What they’ll need to do at some point is to shift to a company-wide imple- mentation to capture the missing items and functions, which may take another six to twelve months or more. To us, this is acceptable; we’ll opt for Quick Slice and perhaps a slightly longer time to reach Class A. 4 Others may not. H OW C AN I T B E D ONE S O Q UICKLY ? Some of you may be thinking: “Only four months? Only 120 days? How can anything this major be accomplished in so little time?” Good question. There are two main parts to the answer: first ur- gency and focus, and then work load. Urgency and focus. Shorter projects often require a deep sense of urgency among the team members, and Quick-Slice ERP is no exception. The Quick- Slice mind-set says: “We’re going to concentrate on this slice; we’re going to do it right; we’re going to get it done in four months; and we’re not going to let obstacles stand in our way, because we’re going to run over ’em, run around ’em, or knock ’em down.” The team needs to do anything and everything to get the job done quickly and correctly. This small group knows that deadlines will be met, that in- genuity is the norm, and that it will accomplish an extraordinary deed. Urgency and focus are essential. If you’re going to do Quick Slice, don’t leave home without ’em. Work load. It’s essential to turn down the work load knob because the time knob has been cranked down to about four months. This is why Quick-Slice ERP—Overview 277 4 But perhaps not more time. As the first several slices are successful, momentum and enthusiasm can build. And this may result in the company-wide implementa- tion on the rest of the products and functions going quite quickly. Quick Slice focuses on only a small portion of the products and com- ponents. Virtually everything in a Quick-Slice implementation is scaled down, but there are three areas that really make the differ- ence: education for the people (the A item, remember?), data in- tegrity (the B item), and software (the C item). Typically, the critical path in a company-wide implementation is through one of these three. Let’s take a look at each one. 1. Accelerated education for key people. One of the time-consuming steps in a company-wide implementa- tion is initial education—reaching all or virtually all the people in the company. Quick Slice acknowledges that can’t happen; there’s just not enough time. Therefore, the Quick-Slice approach is to provide, at the outset, education for only those people who’ll be directly involved with the slice. This is a small percentage of the total employment in the com- pany, and can be done quickly. 2. Data integrity on slice items only. Another time-consuming task in a company-wide implementation is to get all the data up to the high levels of accuracy required for ERP: inventory records, bills of material, formulas, routings, work orders, purchase orders, and more. It’s a big job. The Quick-Slice approach: Get data accuracy on only the slice products and components. You don’t have time to do much more than that. Get the slice numbers right and worry about the rest later. 3. Software soon. Urgency demands that the Quick-Slice implementation not get hung up on software, or hardware for that matter. It cannot be al- lowed to delay the project. If you already have software, fine. If not, don’t despair. You can make it happen. “Well,” you may be thinking, “those are nice words, but how in the world do we do that? After all, there’s a lot at stake: an Enterprise System is expensive; it’s a major purchase decision; it has to be in- stalled, interfaced, enhanced, and all that takes a good deal of time. 278 ERP: M I H TEAMFLY Team-Fly ® Our systems people will be hard pressed to get all of that done to fit with the timing for a company-wide implementation, much less Quick Slice.” My answer, one more time: It’s up to you. How important is a Quick Slice implementation? We’re back to urgency. If it’s really im- portant to you, you won’t allow the software to delay the Quick-Slice implementation. Make a quick decision on software—within a few days, not weeks or months. Forget about getting an ES. Focus on the low-cost, highly functional software that runs on personal computers. If need be, plan to use it on an interim basis only, for a year or so, until the en- terprise software is installed. We’ll talk more about this in the next chapter, which covers the details of Quick-Slice implementation. In general terms, that’s how it happens when companies do a Quick Slice on a Proven Path basis. Here’s Roger Brooks again: “Time is the ultimate enemy. The longer the implementation takes, the more it will cost and the greater the ‘window of risk.’” N OTE i Mark Kupferberg, MRP and JIT: A Survival Strategy, APICS 1987 Conference proceedings (Falls Church, VA: American Production and In- ventory Control Society, p. 111). Q & A WITH THE A UTHORS M IKE : Have you ever seen a Quick-Slice implementation turn into a “slow slice”? T OM : Unfortunately yes. The company did an insufficient “gut check” on the urgency and resource issues. They said the words but didn’t really mean them. Without urgency and the resources to make things happen quickly, the project floundered and was subsequently abandoned. Quick-Slice ERP—Overview 279 [...]... ERP elements in place 3 Early win Quick Slice represents an early win Implementing S&OP completely, within Quick Slice, is an early, early win Early successes promote behavior change 4 Balance With so much attention on the Quick Slice, it’s important to watch the rest of the products to ensure that resources aren’t being drained from them S&OP will facilitate minding that part of the store 5 Motivator... will come.) However, any implementation—company-wide or Quick-Slice— without active, visible, and informed top management leadership is not a Proven Path implementation The odds for success drop, and that’s the bad news The good news is they drop less with Quick Slice What, then, are the differences in a Quick-Slice implementation without a top management team that’s ERP knowledgeable? The answer to... management team to press on with additional slices and/or company-wide implementation It helps to reduce complacency and, hence, the risk of stalling out after one or several successful slices Demand management, planning, and scheduling processes This nails down the details of what’s going to be done and generates the detailed project schedule This can happen concurrently with the series of business... curve applies; it’ll be easier with the next bunch 288 ERP: M I H • Achieving an early win Early successes promote behavior change TE AM FL Y What you need to make accurate are the on-hand inventory records, the open orders, the bills of material The need to restructure bills is not likely, but it could be necessary in some cases Make certain the item data, along with whatever work center data... chicken wire stockroom This was, in effect, a smaller stockroom within their unsecured primary stockroom They cleared an area, fenced it in with chicken wire to obtain limited access, and proceeded to get the records accurate In some companies, a painted line on the floor could have the same effect Another company had an accuracy problem with common items, ones used both in the slice product and elsewhere... you’ve already installed new Enterprise Software, you’ve most probably implemented new finance and accounting tools as a part of that effort Great—you’re a leg up, and you can proceed with your Quick-Slice ERP implementation knowing you’re okay in that area If, on the other hand, you’re still running legacy applications in the finance and accounting area, we urge you to stick with what you have 4 This,... Although not impossible, it will be difficult to implement Quick Slice successfully in that environment It will be totally dependent on these functionally organized work centers that have little or no identification with the slice products and activities The solution is to create flow from the job shop, and the way this is done is with cells This means to dedicate specific pieces of equipment to the manufacture... slice is done and it’s successful Audit/assessment II leads the company to loop back and do the second slice That’s successful, and that leads to a third slice and possibly more That’s great; that’s the way it should be At some point, after a number of slices, the need to shift to a company-wide implementation will become compelling Several reasons: 1 The company continues to operate with two systems Maybe... 5), the Quick-Slice torchbearer should plan on being directly involved with the implementation more frequently, perhaps several times per day Quick-Slice ERP—Implementation 285 Why? After all, you may be thinking, it says earlier in this book that if you’re dealing with a small business unit, less than 100 people, you can get by without a full-timer—so why do we need one? Because if you don’t have... implementation can probably proceed in a fairly standard fashion, with perhaps a few other exceptions For example, top management may not want to participate in the steps that involve vision statement, cost/benefit, and performance goals Do it without them That’s not ideal, but it sure beats doing nothing What if top management won’t get involved with Sales & Operations Planning? You’re still not dead in the . then called Man- ufacturing Resource Planning. Once they saw it with their own eyes, they were convinced. They then proceeded to lead a company-wide implementation with Class A results. 5. Jumbo-sized. did an insufficient “gut check” on the urgency and resource issues. They said the words but didn’t really mean them. Without urgency and the resources to make things happen quickly, the project. an early win. Implementing S&OP completely, within Quick Slice, is an early, early win. Early successes promote behavior change. 4. Balance. With so much attention on the Quick Slice, it’s