STRATEGIC PLANNING
Project team: Assign a project team with employees from sales, customer service, accounting, purchasing, operations and senior management. Each team member should be committed to the success of the project and accountable for specific tasks, i.e. developing a timeline, finalizing objectives, formulating a training plan. Make sure you include first line workers as well as management on your team. Base the selection on the knowledge of the team not status of the employee.
Examine current business processes: Have the team perform an analysis on which business processes should be improved. Gather copies of key documents such as invoices, batch tickets and bill of lading for the analysis. To start the team discussion, consider questions such as: Are your procedures up to date? Are there processes that could be automated? Are personnel spending overtime processing orders? Does your sales force and customer service personnel have real-time access to customer information? The team members should also conduct interviews with key personnel to uncover additional areas of improvement needed.
Set objectives: The objectives should be clearly defined prior to implementing the ERP solution. ERP systems are massive and you won’t be able to implement every function. You need to define the scope of implementation. Ideally, the scope should be all inclusive. But practically, it is very difficult to implement. Examples of objectives would include: Does the solution reduce backlogs? Can the solution improve on-time deliveries? Will you be able to increase production yields?
Develop a project plan: The team should develop a project plan which includes previously defined goals and objectives, timelines, training procedures, as well as individual team responsibilities. The end result of the project plan should be a “to do” list for each project team member.
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