Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) is a systematic method of dynamically balancing and optimizing the resources of a company. When used effectively, it can enable a company to achieve world-class results in growth, profitability, and product and service development. ERP works within the paradigm that every business is unique, yet similar. It is a radical change event that provides the opportunity to overcome the resistance of years of evolution. It is a chance to make a quantum leap forward, establishing your company as the industry leader and devastating your competition.
WHAT IS REQUIRED TO SUCCEED?
1. Select the right system. Knowing why the effort should be undertaken is the most important key to success. The second most important key is selecting the right system. Selecting the right system requires deciding whether to "shape the software" or "shape the business." This right decision can't be made accidentally.
2. Document the business. Documenting your current processes is required. Luckily, it can be done painlessly using a rather simple methodology. When you're done, you have the "current process" and the "improved process." Now making the decision whether to "shape the software" or "shape the business" can be done effectively. Make your decision wisely.
3. Have the "RIGHT STUFF." Can you imagine NASA preparing and launching a shuttle mission using brand new personnel or part-timers? Implementing an ERP system is nearly as daunting a task, so who should be on the team? Since ERP will cross many of the traditional boundaries that are established, the team must be willing to challenge organizational norms.
4. Create a budget and schedule. The key to being on schedule and on budget is to start with a schedule and budget grounded in reality. How do you get it? How do you test your budget? Use these guidelines to create and test.
TEN MISTAKES TO AVOID
1.Hiring inexperienced consultants
2.Abdicating too much
3. Being afraid to rock the boat
4. Being over-analytical or over-intuitive
5. Believing one size fits all, when in fact your
enterprise is "uniquely" similar
6. Emotionally "buying" a particular system too soon
7. Under-planning
8. Employing undisciplined testing
9. Expecting short-term results
10.Under-feeding the system
Real-world experience has shown that the investment will pay off. Mass production has given way to mass customization. Local markets are being served by the global village. Your new system--while not a quick fix--is the answer to long-term opportunity in an increasingly competitive world.
Other point of view is that it will highlight the many ways that companies can master supply chain execution and build lifetime customer value by integrating ERP applications with supply chain software.
·The many ways that supply chain software can extend traditional ERP systems and help companies build lifetime customer value
·How to control logistics cost by implementing these advanced strategies
·How to build lifetime customer value by effectively responding to delivery expectations through integrating ERP and supply chain execution systems
To control the cost of logistics and enhance the response to customer demands, companies need to master supply chain execution, transforming plans into globally optimized action. This presentation will provide an overview of advanced strategies that enable users to gain complete fulfillment and pipeline visibility and the control of orders, inventory, and assets. By integrating ERP and supply chain execution systems, companies can build lifetime customer value. Supply chain execution is the primary area for improving competitive advantage by increasing customer service while simultaneously decreasing operating costs.
A critical factor in customer retention is meeting individual customer requirements. Systems must now collaborate among all points of warehousing and distribution in order to effectively respond to delivery expectations. This session will focus on how companies can master supply chain execution. These steps include gaining end-to-end supply chain visibility from suppliers to customers, anywhere in the world. Also required is short-horizon and even immediate planning--planning that can quickly react to changing business and customer requirements and rapidly consider a multitude of options and alternatives. Lastly, mastering execution means not only managing everything that must go right, it especially requires rapid, effective solutions for all the things that can and will go wrong.
Managing ERP Project
An ERP project involves an investment from several million dollars to hundreds of millions. The success of ERP system implementation largely depends on the successful project management, which includes technolog, people and the process.
Selecting the right ERP system for your enterprise
·Functional fit with the company's business processes
·Package vs. Customization
·Degree of integration between the various components of the ERP system
·Flexibility and scalability
·Ability to support multisite planning and control
·Technology -- Client/Server capabilities, database and security
·Total cost
Building an effective team
·Keep top management involved and supportive
·Select the right project manager
·Set-up cross functional implementation teams
·Obtain a good implementation partner
Opportunity and Challenge
·Understand and identify core processes and critical success factors
·Simplify and change the core processes
·Automate the process
Managing the Cost
·Application training
·Implementation cost and customization
·Hardware requirements and software licenses
·Maintenance
·Aftermath application
Measuring the Performance
·Goals and controls
·People involvement
·Success is getting it done on time
·Take a snapshot all the time - Inventory, ROI and WIP
Maximizing the return on your ERP investment is based on how well you control and optimize your ERP core business processes. This requires:
1.To identify the critical business processes
2.To understand requirements for the control of the core business processes
3.To assess the current state of core business processes
While some companies have achieved remarkable return on their ERP investment, others have very little to show for ERP implementation efforts. Maximizing return on your ERP investment is based on how well you control and optimize your core business processes. Core business processes include Sales and Operations Planning, Roughcut Capacity Planning, Bills of Material Management, Inventory Management, Material Planning, Master Scheduling, and Supplier and Customer Partnering.
Managing these processes in the context of enterprise resource planning is key to achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage in total quality, cost management, and response time. With "enterprise" now being extended beyond the traditional boundaries of the organization to include customers and suppliers, the importance of well-managed, supply-chain-enhancing processes is heightened. Properly implemented and controlled, ERP is a key contributor to success in supply chain management.
ERP technology can enable these processes, but only if the foundation and discipline around each process are in place. Maximizing ERP value is supported by factors such as integrated business planning, formal sales and operations planning, data integrity, management education, user understanding of business processes and their supporting technology, and linkage to customers and suppliers. Defining the critical measures around core business processes facilitates continuous improvement while confirming key business metrics.
For the past several years, companies have been focused on deploying ERP solutions for a variety of business reasons, including Y2K compliance. Now they need to look beyond the Year 2000 to maximize the return on those significant ERP investments. A key strategic means to achieve this return is to extend the information in HR, Benefits and Payroll systems via the Internet — empowering employees and managers and increasing workplace productivity. We believe is the most powerful solution available today to achieve this goal and are excited to have TCT/ARIS as a partner in bringing the .
CSC INTIATIVE HELPS MAXIMIZE ERP INVESTMENTS TO DRIVE
BUSINESS AND SHAREHOLDER VALUE
CSC leverages partnership with Oracle to tap critical customer, product and business performance information from ERP systems
Computer Sciences Corporation (NYSE: CSC) today announced a strategic initiative to extend its relationship with Oracle Corporation to include Strategic Enterprise Management (SEM). SEM will help clients extract and analyze from current ERP systems critical customer, channel, segment, service and product profitability information, as well as financial and non-financial performance data of key business segments.
CSC said it will initially partner with Oracle to implement SEM. CSC's SEM services will assist clients in developing and implementing advanced cost- management and performance-measurement techniques.
CSC's long-term strategy is to provide enhanced strategic, operational and financial management services across a wide range of ERP industry solutions. Recent product introductions by the leading ERP vendors, such as Oracle, offer our clients the opportunity to truly re-shape the manner in which performance is measured, evaluated and incented, Coupling the technological power of these applications with the thought leadership and integration capabilities of CSC creates a powerful force for change within client organizations.
CSC will assist clients in the design, development and implementation of such capabilities as:
•activity-based costing management, which is a costing technique designed to provide visibility to the cost of work performed and improve the accuracy of product, service and customer costing and related profitability measurement;
•balanced scorecard performance measures, which is the use of multidimensional metrics to assess enterprise progress in achieving critical goals and objectives. Balanced metrics are closely linked with corporate strategy and intended to drive increased shareholder value.
Until recently,cost-management and performance-measurement applications have resided on the PC. While this has provided an excellent platform for piloting, testing and prototyping approaches, these tools have limitations when companies seek robust enterprise wide solutions. The availability of client-server applications in these areas changes the landscape considerably.
CSC's SEM initiative is targeted directly at assisting clients as they navigate through this transition. These new client-server-based applications for cost management, profitability analysis and performance measurement offer clients a unique opportunity to integrate these capabilities with existing ERP applications. SEM will allow clients to tap the full potential of integrated ERP systems.
Leveraging ERP systems in this area is a key need, according to the 1999 annual report on "Technology Issues for Financial Executives," which has just been released by the Financial Executives Institute and CSC. Chief financial officers believe there is a serious "information gap" in most analytical areas where business performance and decision making are limited by information, according to the survey results. CFOs cited "measuring product and customer profitability" and "reducing enterprise operating costs" as the two areas most constrained by a lack of technology.
Computer Sciences Corporation helps clients in industry and government use information technology to achieve strategic and operational objectives. The company develops individual business solutions that are delivered by CSC's 50,000 employees in more than 700 offices worldwide in areas such as management and information technology consulting, systems consulting and integration, operations support and information services outsourcing.
Since its formation in 1959, CSC has been known for its flexibility in its relationships with clients. The company maintains numerous agreements with hardware and software technology companies and thus is able to identify and manage solutions specifically tailored to each client's needs. CSC had revenues of $7.4 billion for the twelve months ended January 1, 1999. Its headquarters are in El Segundo, California.
Everett, Wash. - Wireless LAN vendor Intermec is almost set to start beta testing a new family of handheld computers designed to collect data in warehouses and shipping docks and feed it into enterprise databases and applications.
The new wireless Data Collection PC uses the Microsoft Windows CE operating system and a set of standard, instead of proprietary, networking and communications protocols, such as TCP/IP and DHCP, to connect easily with corporate nets. The new devices, which are designed for one-handed use, also support bar code reading or other scanning technologies.
This combination of technologies is intended to let roaming workers at shipping docks, hospital bedsides, retails shelves and so on, collect data on the spot and at once move it to applications such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), inventory management and supply chain management.
A growing number of customers who are deploying such applications, from vendors such as People Soft, SAP AG and Oracle, have realized the importance of feeding them quickly with accurate information. Companies see a faster rate-of-return on ERP investments if they can incorporate real-time data collection.
The new devices will also carry an array of Intermec's own system software that applications can use to automate various tasks. For example, a worker may use a Data Collection PC to read inventory with a bar code scanner. The software can automatically recognize inventory codes and pass this data to the corporate ERP application. If the worker uses the PC to clock out at the end of his shift the software will recognize this different data and forward it, again automatically, to a payroll application.
The Data Collection PC is due out during the first half of 1999, in four models: a hand held device with compact keyboard; a version mounted in a vehicle, such as a forklift; a stationary model specially "hardened" for shop floors and similar locations; and a pen-and-tablet version. Pricing has not yet been decided.
Intermec chose Windows CE because of its compatibility with the 32-bit Windows API, the ability to use only a subset of CE's modules for each device, and the growing popularity of Windows NT as a corporate server, according to Watridge.
About ICC
ICC is a pioneer in developing innovative, Internet-based solutions for ERP self-service. Its flagship suite of applications has taken the concept of self-service to a new level beyond simple web-enablement of back-end systems. Integrating both internal and external content provides companies with a true Web-based online employee/manager information and transaction network – designed to help companies attract, develop, empower and retain a quality workforce into the new millennium.