Before beginning the journey of implementing an enterprise resource planning (ERP) solution such as MRPeasy there are a few points to consider to ensure your organisation and team are set up for success.
Taking the time to plan and consider the resources and goals of the project can streamline the task, reducing time and cost, and ensuring that team members are on-board with their responsibilities and requirements.
An MRPeasy implementation can affect every department inside a small to medium sized manufacturer, so there needs to be careful consideration of the overall business view, its culture and behavioural traits that currently exist inside the organisation.
Understanding Why
Usually underrated, or simply brushed over – companies need to discuss, map and understand what problems they’re trying to overcome through the implementation of MRPeasy. This is best accomplished by discussions with a range of stakeholders inside the business – from shop floor operators, middle management and C-suite members – understanding each step of the process allows for better, informed decision-making.
Typical whys we have found through our experience in implementing MRPeasy:
- Capitalising on growth through the introduction of standardised procedures and automation
- Visualisation of production scheduling with capacity planning and forecasting
- Strengthening the accuracy of stock control through demand planning and procurement management
- Implementing one central system for increased collaboration across the organisation
It is also important to outline the key stakeholders of the system and bring them on board early into the process. They’re usually operations and production management and staff, who ultimately will be responsible for the output and results of MRPeasy.
Building a clear picture of why can also be used to bring the team together to solve a common set of problems. This is useful for convincing and converting staff that can be prone to change resistance. Without a clear understanding or goal of the new system, these members may seek to give minimal effort to the implementation or attempt to drive and influence negative behaviours towards the project.
Understanding why is critical to bringing your team along on the journey. It should be used to outline clear goals and targets to ensure that the implementation is not only a success but the right decision for your business.
Dedicating Resources
Implementing MRPeasy will take time and effort. Gathering information, mapping processes, discussing change, system training, trialling functionality and reviewing solutions – these are all key activities throughout a software implementation.
Ensuring that employees have the time to dedicate to the project is paramount to its success. One of the key reasons why implementations fail is through a lack of time from key stakeholders to truly dedicate their efforts to the project. If an employee is identified as being required to dedicate time to the project, there needs to be awareness and understanding from their staff, peers and managers, as to why a portion of their working day is being redirected outside of their working role. Their dedication now will pay off in the future.
Bringing in external technical expertise will help streamline and reduce the amount of resources a company will need to commit, but there will still be a need for internal project team leaders and team members, not to mention the internal system expert, who will replace the technical expertise on the consultants’ departure. External consultants are not the experts of your business, it is only through mutual collaboration that a system implementation can achieve maximum success.
A key point to remember: during the implementation, the more effort that is put in, the more results that are achieved.
Change Should be Exciting
Implementing a new ERP system is not an event that often happens, usually, the solution will be in place and a part of daily working life inside the business for many years to come. This also means that this level of change does not happen regularly. Playing a part in a new system and its associated new or translated processes should be an exciting endeavour for all employees to contribute.
Through an MRPeasy implementation, processes such as stock control, production management, procurement management and customer order processing are looked at in-depth, with the opportunity for change and improvement. Employees may experience a different role, be exposed to different conversations and begin to methodically understand the reasoning behind processes that occur internally.
Throughout an implementation, there will be a range of activities conducted, such as process mapping, production timing, analysing of stock control measures and defining reporting requirements. But change is not limited to the aforementioned, building excitement to look at the business with a fresh set of eyes can open up a range of opportunities for employees to improve and manage their own internal projects. This is a great opportunity to address the issues that affect the day-to-day tasks of employees, while simultaneously building collaboration, communication and efficiency.
MRPeasy as a Solution for your Business
At Explic8, we work with manufacturers to improve their internal processes and implement solutions and tools to improve efficiencies.
One of our partnered software tools is MRPeasy, an Enterprise Resource Planning software aimed at small to medium-sized manufacturers looking to take their operations to the next level. If you would like to find out more about the features of MRPeasy then read our article What is MRPeasy?
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If you would like to discuss how MRPeasy could streamline processes inside your organisation then contact us for a free consultation.
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