Posted by Liz Alflen on Thu, Jul 29, 2010 @ 02:33 PM
One unfortunate morning a few years ago, I got an early call at home from my boss informing me that my 1st floor office had been broken into and my computer was stolen. It so happened that I had left my laptop on my desk, hooked to an external monitor, a VOIP phone and a printer. When the burglar alarm/noise-intrusion sensor went off, scaring the intruders into a more heightened sense of urgency, they made a quick grab for my laptop, but ended up dragging along the monitor, the phone and the printer. Pieces of my printer (the paper tray, paper, little broken plastic pieces) were strewn across the parking lot. By the time the police arrived on the scene, the intruders were long gone, miscellaneous plastic parts left behind, and they were likely on the highway headed out of town.
Not surprisingly, I panicked at this news. What about all my information? My reports? My data? What would I do? How painful would this be?
The local police made note of all the pertinent information but offered little hope for recovery. Our IT department made available an alternate computer for my use while ordering me a new one; I received the usual talking-to about backing-up my data. When I finally got back to work, I quickly found that I wasn’t in too much trouble.
I still had access to our EnterpriseIQ ERP system! They couldn’t take that away from me. I can access the system from anywhere, log in, run a report, review documents, respond to workflows - from anywhere.
Until that day, I hadn’t realized that the bulk of any day’s work was not dependent on my personal computer, my stored information or my reports. Most of any day’s work could be completed by accessing information in EnterpriseIQ, views or reports.
For my purposes related to both Administration and HR, areas I access on any given day include:
And on and on. It was almost disappointing. My data isn’t even really special (although my particular role is); I’m replaceable by someone else (or perhaps multiple individuals) who is (are) trained in the system, can access the same information, and plan equivalent courses of action. One of the tremendous values in having a comprehensive ERP system is in the ease with which I can fulfill my responsibilities, independent of specific hardware or location, as well as the ease with which a “backup” could do the same.
I still try to remember to back-up the data on my personal computer, but I’m confident that most of the information I need at work will be available to me when I need it. It’s nice to NOT worry about something!
Posted by Diane Ramaglia on Tue, Jul 06, 2010 @ 07:10 AM
There is one thing that I am aware of when a consultant comes on-site to assist with an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Implementation, they ask "why" a lot.
I was a customer not so long ago and our project team would get a little frustrated when the consultant kept asking them why we did things a certain way. Now that I am a manager of a Professional Services Group and I have been a consultant for an ERP vendor for the past 6 years, I know why they ask why. They want to understand the reason why you may be doing something a certain way when utilizing your current system and why you might want to do it the same way in a new ERP system. Sometimes it takes your consultant asking "why" five times before they know the "real" reason is discovered of why you may be doing something a specific way.
Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRPII) systems have been around for a long time and a lot of companies have been utilizing the same system for twenty plus years. Older systems definitely have limitations compared to the newer systems available. Older systems often can't be upgraded because of all the numerous changes they had customized way back in the stone ages (kidding of course!). Knowing this, we realize that older MRP systems had limitations that forced users to do things a certain way.
Here are some common answers that consultants get when it comes to asking "Why":
- We have always done it that way. It works for us so why change it.
- I wasn't around when they implemented this system so I have no idea why they've been doing it that way.
- That's the way I was shown so I don't question why we are doing it that way.
- The best one is: Because I want to do it that way!
An ERP consultant is not your enemy; they are there to assist you with best business practices on maximizing the ERP system. They are asking questions to better understand your processes/procedures that will allow them to help you utilize your "new" system. They are not to questioning you just to question you; they want to better understand how they can help you. We understand that you may have done it that way for the past 20 years but things have changed and ERP systems have come a long way in the past 20 - 30 years that you no longer have to process data the same way.
Here is an example of a specific process that a customer had requested recently: They wanted to be able to put a note in a location to explain why they did not want to ship a specific lot of product and they wanted this note to follow through the system. After asking why they needed this note, the main reason was because they did not want to be able to ship this product. Solution, instead of changing the program at a potential thousand dollar cost to the customer, we discussed with them adding an attribute that would simply not allow them to ship this lot. Not being able to ship a lot is much easier to address than changing all the programs that were affected by any inventory transaction within the system.
So think about this and do yourself a favor the next time you are asked to answer the "why" questions because you just might be pleasantly surprised by the results!