ERP Consultants

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Preparing to Implement ERP

Home> Preparing to Implement ERP

 

 

A vast majority of ERP implementations are held back by numerous obstacles—some seen and some unseen. The ramifications are overly costly and stressful implementations that fall well short of the true business potential of the ERP project.

 

These obstacles are created by the implementation service providers, the sellers of ERP, and the buyers of ERP. Most obstacles are misunderstood or not even recognized. We offer a white paper that details these obstacles and can be downloaded from this link – ERP Implementation Control. It is useful to understand these obstacles to better comprehend the Engleman Associates’ solution to control implementations.

 

The implementation support services from Engleman Associates, Inc. (EAI) are presented in two major offerings. The first is the Pre-implementation Readiness Planning—which is a service performed before the formal implementation begins. The second is Implementation Support—which could take different forms, such as periodic monitoring of the implementation to full internal project management. Since these offerings can be delivered independent of each other—they are described separately.

Our Implementation Control Process

The following chart shows a top-level view of our approach for companies to fully prepare for and conduct an ERP implementation. Details can be found by following the Process Details link in the upper left.

Preparing for ERP Implementations. Controlling ERP Implementations.

 

For details of these major steps

 

The Valuable Results

Flexible Service Delivery Options

“Just the Facts” Webinar

The written word makes it difficult to convey the full purpose and benefit of the type of planning and implementation project control advocated in this website. Therefore we offer a one-hour introductory webinar on ERP implementation control.

 

This webinar is a 'just the facts' case study and not a sales pitch. We strive to make this a productive use of your time as you will take away concepts and tips to use. The presenter is typically Mark Engleman who developed this overall implementation control process. He has been involved in over 600 ERP projects and has presented over 350 ERP training webinars.

 

The webinar is typically offered every other Thursday at 1pm Pacific Time—as well as other times to better fit the schedule of those interested. For the current schedule, send an email to webinars@softselect.com or give us a call.

 

 

 

“At the start of our ERP replacement project we had many years of legacy business processes that were visible and familiar to my team. Not as visible to my team were the better go-forward business processes and new options with modern ERP's business intelligence, workflows, and configurability capabilities. Engleman Associates, Inc. first provided education for my team on modern ERP options and the concept of highly connected process execution across our enterprise. Then they helped us design future-state processes with a focus on current business process problems, improvement ideas, and apparently unique process we had. This pre-implementing planning significantly helped us step above the limitations of our current ERP and attachment to existing business processes and tools, and more clearly see better go-forward processes. We also increase our enthusiasm and resolve to achieve these go-forward processes.”

Jeff Markham, President, Cornell Pump Company

“As a service, materials and manufacturing manager I have directly seen the poor results that come from a lack of business process ownership and project control in ERP initiatives.  Ownership of business processes means that the logic and rules must be actively developed by those that use the process and create value--not by ERP system implementers or anyone else.  The pre-implementation readiness process used by Engleman Associates nicely supports this critical planning in enterprise software projects.  I have used Engleman Associates processes as a manufacturing operations manager/ERP project leader, as an  independent consultant, and these experiences currently influence my work as a graduate management school administrator and instructor.”

Jim Myers, Associate Dean, Atkinson Graduate School of Management

“It was always obvious to us that our ERP project was about achieving better business process, lower costs, and better serving customers. However it was not obvious how to effectively conduct and lead this business process planning. Engleman Associates, Inc. (EAI) provided valuable assistance in how to conduct and lead this critical business process planning. Key to this assistance were techniques to focus on the approximate 20% of all future-state business processes, process exceptions, and metrics that were somewhat unusual at Provo Craft--as compared to ones more routine. This assistance made a solid contribution to our success.”

Gary Walters, SAP Technical Project Manager. Provo Craft

“Engleman Associates played a significant and positive role in helping us select and prepare to implement an ERP system that was appropriate for our business. This included educating our ERP selection team about the attributes and relevance of modern ERP. Due to the success of the selection process, we utilized Engleman Associates for pre-implementation business process planning—and other readiness activities. This preparation proved to be invaluable for our ability to control implementation costs and results. Finally the confidence and learning gained from these services was critical to enabling the organizational change management needed to reach toward the ERP project potential.”

Dave Preikszas, VP of Operations, Aplicare, Inc.