As is typical in most implementations, most of the department heads were pulled into the conference room this afternoon for the 'Kick Off Meeting'. What was different about this kick off meeting was that this was the first exposure to the software for most of the department heads. Most of the attendees of the meeting are still yet to see any part of the software. Only one of the department heads or actual current ERP users were involved in the pre-sale evaluation of the new software.
The general overview of the implementation timeline took about an hour. There were very few questions or comments. The few that were presented quickly turned into off topic conversations.
The masses dispersed and left a few critical participants of the implementation team to begin sorting out the details.There were 12 main sections of the plan outlined, with a few miscellaneous subsections. I was quickly calculating the number of work days, consulting days, hours and events facing us.
We currently have 16 working days, 9 consulting days (the lead consultant/project manager is available 3 days per week to work with us), 12 outlined sections, data conversions of most existing data, server setup, vpn setup, discovery, training, GL account restructuring and countless questions needing answered. Assuming that a day is defined as 8 hours, that is 72 consulting hours to complete all of these tasks.
The Outlined Sections are as follows:
- Sales Order Entry
- Scheduling
- Engineering (BOM Entry)
- Production Release
- Production Tracking
- Labor Tracking
- Quality Tracking – Rework and Inspection doumentation
- Material Planning
- Job Completion
- Shipping and Invoicing
- Accounting
- GL Structure
- GL Integration
- GL Entries
- Financial Reports
- AP
- AR
- Cost Accounting
- Post Delivery Support
- Warranty
- Service
- After Market Part Sales
There was some minor restructuring of the outline that resulted in 10 main sections instead of 12. Not significant, but it does help simplify the math. 72 hours divided by 10 outlined sections results in approximately 7.2 hours dedicated to each core process of our 'Phase I' of the ERP Implementation. In order to keep the math simple, we will leave out tasks such as data conversion, server setup, vpn setup, data validation, testing, conference room pilots....We will just assume that we have the discovery phase (the time in which the consultant helps identify our current requirements, processes, workflow...) and training. We are also going to make the assumption that our company currently has all of the processes and procedures well documented and enforced throughout the company.
A schedule is born: In short, we are dedicating 1/2 day of discovery to 8 of the above core processes (two of them are going to be handled through training by the two production managers that are already familiar with the new software (they also came from our competitor)). 1/2 day of training is scheduled for the same 8 core processes. 1 day is scheduled for the Conference Room Pilot. If you are not keeping up so far, that is approximately 4 hours of training time for core processes such as the multiple accounting tasks.
Several main concerns about switching the software were broached (remember that all divisions of the company are going to eventually switch to the new software, and we are standardizing as much as possible):
Several main concerns about switching the software were broached (remember that all divisions of the company are going to eventually switch to the new software, and we are standardizing as much as possible):
- General Ledger Chart of Accounts - The CFO will be responsible for releasing a new corporate structure for Chart of Accounts by 2/20/15. We will create a 'mapping' from our existing chart of accounts to the new structure.
- Inventory Stock Codes - There was discussion about revamping all of our existing part numbers using a new part numbering methodology. This would essentially render all existing Engineering Models and Bills of Materials useless. This would also affect all existing customer's that reference already published stock codes.It was decided to postpone the restructuring until after Phase I was complete.
- Manufacturing Philosophies - Will our BOM contain a fully structure BOM or only reference Raw Material Requirements? Will we create manufacturing jobs for the 150+ manufactured parts required to build our end product? How will routings be structured? How will we integrate to our fabrication nesting software? All of these questions were tabled and would be discussed at a future date.
- Customer Accounts and Vendor Accounts - Should we reconcile customers and vendors with all divisions before our go live? Is it possible to do? What are the limitations? The account numbers are numeric fields. Other divisions currently use AlphaNumeric structures for their account numbers. Will changing account numbers affect existing customers or vendors? No decision was made on making changes.
The remainder of the discussion focused on data conversion. The consultant is going to provide 'data templates' to be to populate from our existing data. I will create some scripts to export the data for testing. He will be responsible for importing the data into the new system. The plan is to run these scripts before the Conference Room Pilot and conduct testing to make sure it is acceptable. The Conference Room Pilot is scheduled for 3/5/2014 - leaving one day between the CRP and the 'Go Live' date. The scripts will be run again before 'go live' to have the most current transactional data in the new system.
Although there are many different uses of the term 'Conference Room Pilot', there are three commonly accepted principles:
Although there are many different uses of the term 'Conference Room Pilot', there are three commonly accepted principles:
- A CRP is commonly used to identify how well the software fits the business needs and identify gaps.
- There is an expectation that changes will be required before acceptance of the solution.
- CRP's should be performed early in the process, throughout the process and well before the Go Live' date to allow adequate time to identify and fix shortcomings.
If we are all willing to accept the concept of a CRP as being a tool to identify potential shortcomings or gaps in the software, then it should be deemed unacceptable to perform the CRP with little to no time to react to the findings.
As of now, the next stage of the implementation is for the lead consultant to provide the data templates for me to begin populating data. I have committed to being present during all of the company's interactions with the consultant -so that I better understand the system and proposed changes.
The servers are scheduled to be in place, with the new ERP programs loaded on 2/27/15. That is 5 working days before the 'Go Live' date. I am scheduled to meet with our HQ's technical department on 2/24/15 about the VPN. How long does it take to get dedicated trunks to set up an adequate VPN? Will we have a redundant connection set up in case of failure by our current ISP? Will we be stuck running off our existing and inadequate coaxial connection for a while? Will it be adequate for 'go live'? How can we possibly test the throughput and react with the CRP 1 working day before we go live?
There is one other troubling question...who decides on a mid month 'go live' date?
No comments:
Post a Comment