Recognize the implementation of ERP system with deep anatomy

In the era of knowledge economy, suppliers, manufacturers, and sellers must be included in a closely linked supply chain, in this way, the enterprise's production, supply and marketing activities can be reasonably and effectively arranged to further improve efficiency and gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Since the 70 or 80 s, Chinese enterprises have started to develop and implement MRPII. In recent years, the ERP market has been in full swing, and many enterprises have used and purchased ERP products, however, there are many difficulties, conflicts, and uncontrollable factors in implementing ERP, and few enterprises have successfully implemented ERP.

I. Problems faced by enterprises in moving ERP

Currently, the biggest problem facing enterprises is management. With the accelerated process of China's accession to the WTO and global economic integration, the adjustment of industrial structure will be carried out throughout the world. Management is the key to whether an enterprise can win competition in the market and be able to develop continuously.

In the world's highly competitive market, whether it is the stream program logistics industry or the discrete manufacturing industry, whether it is single-piece production, multi-variety small batch production, less repeated production of varieties or a large number of production of standard products, internal management of the manufacturing industry may encounter some problems:

For example, an enterprise may have excellent sales staff, but workers on the production line cannot deliver the goods on schedule. workshop managers complain that the purchasing department does not supply the raw materials they need in a timely manner. In fact, the efficiency of the purchasing department is too high. Some materials in the warehouse are not used up for 10 years. The warehouse location is saturated, and the capital turnover is very slow ......

There is no denying that these situations are a severe management problem facing most of our enterprises. However, what are the effective solutions to this problem? -The fact is that Chinese enterprises have not fully realized the seriousness of this problem. Foreign ERP/MRPII software vendors have quietly entered the Chinese market, with the passage of time, ERP has gradually been recognized by the business and theoretical circles in China.

2. informatization is a magic weapon for enterprises to improve management

At present, most enterprises in China have a large scope of business implementation elasticity, and modern technical facilities are not advanced, facing the changing market is relatively difficult. Chinese enterprises have made great efforts in plant management, such as reducing consumption, reducing staff and improving efficiency. However, they are not systematic. On the contrary, they are intermittent and superficial and have not summarized the internal rules.

Chinese enterprises must consider the transformation and management of their systems and adapt to rapid market changes. Therefore, it is imperative for Chinese enterprises to improve their comprehensive management level and market response capability. This requires a comprehensive ERP system to help enterprises manage.

The ERP management system has a dual core, that is, management ideas and information technology. ERP is to use information technology to effectively integrate capital flows, logistics and information flows in enterprises, so that they can coordinate the operation, so as to achieve the optimal performance of the entire system.

Information flow is the Neural Network System of an enterprise: from the grass-roots layer to the middle-level to the top-level; from the upper layer to the middle-level to the grass-roots layer; horizontal flow of information. Information must be truthful, accurate, and timely in order to ensure the efficiency of the Organization. implementing ERP can lead to efficient information transmission, which is mainly manifested in the standardization of information formats, fixed transmission channels, and early warning and reminder functions, this ensures smooth and non-distorted information transmission.

Logistics is like the digest system of an enterprise: the key to improving the logistics speed and quality is the optimization of the Business Process of BPR. using information technology will have a lot of impact on the business process, changing the process order or implementing parallelism, closely monitors the status and objectives of the process to achieve integration between different tasks and processes, so that the basic management is comprehensive and standardized, and the leadership monitoring is timely and accurate.

Capital Flow is like a blood circulation system: it is also a comprehensive reflection of enterprise operation quality. With the help of tools, you can promptly discover and control the phenomenon of excess raw materials and suspension of waiting for materials, product backlog, and bad debts in the sales process, promptly solve waste problems, and promptly expose management bottlenecks, to solve the common problems of enterprise financial management, it is limited to post-event accounting without any problems and process control.

ERP integrates information flows, logistics flows, and capital flows to achieve resource sharing. Meanwhile, timely and efficient information processing reduces the processing burden, collects statistics, analyzes and mines data, and extracts knowledge. To sum up, implementing ERP can effectively solve many troubles of enterprises and improve comprehensive management.

III. The road to ERP implementation is bumpy

The ERP project is a huge system project. Over the past decade, ERP has seen many notable success stories and many failed examples. It is becoming increasingly urgent for many enterprises to solve the problem of how to implement ERP well along the channel that is full of troughs. Therefore, it is difficult to analyze and solve the ERP implementation process, it can effectively promote the success of ERP implementation.

First, the enterprise goals for implementing ERP are unclear. Most enterprises mistakenly think that ERP implementation is a simple enterprise information construction project or enterprise management information system project. If the target is set too high or too low, it is easy to blur. When the goal is vague, it is very difficult to implement the specific implementation work. Regardless of the key points, the eyebrows are grabbed, leading to a situation where the investment is too large, the effect is very small, and the implementation is weak. A clear implementation goal is like a harbor on the other side of the sea for implementing ERP projects. If there is no specific and clear sailing goal and direction, ships are easily lost due to different environmental factors.

Secondly, we do not have a clear understanding of the ERP system. The ERP project is regarded as a computer project and lacks a deep understanding and understanding of the three concepts of management ideology, management software, and management information system. Computer systems are not management purposes, but management tools. ERP projects are not computer projects, but management projects. It is a comprehensive innovation of enterprise management models. It is a profound management revolution with a large workload, wide coverage and long implementation cycle.

Thirdly, basic enterprise management for implementing ERP is weak. Long term lack of consistent implementation of advanced concepts, it is bound to be unable to implement and use the ERP system under the guidance of a certain management philosophy, even high-quality enterprises are unable to operate properly due to irregularities in the external market environment.

Fourth, it is difficult for enterprises to identify the advantages and disadvantages of ERP and its applicability. ERP suppliers have different lengths, making it difficult for users to identify advantages and disadvantages and applicability. New knowledge is wide, large, and fast to update, making it difficult to fully master. There are big differences between Enterprise Personality and industry personality, and the enterprise management foundation and focus are different, as a result, it is difficult to develop software that is both advanced, economical, and practical, and has market promotion value.

The above mentioned several factors that make it difficult to implement ERP. If it is not properly solved, it will increase the investment risk of implementing ERP.

4. Implement ERP

Successful ERP implementation marks integration of system operation, rationalization of business processes, dynamic performance monitoring, and continuous management improvement. Successful implementation of ERP will bring tangible benefits to enterprises, accelerate market response, accelerate product production cycles, accelerate capital turnover, improve customer satisfaction, improve product quality, and reduce total costs, ultimately improve the competitiveness and viability of enterprises.

The following are some of my experiences in helping enterprises implement ERP, which are for reference only:

First, implementing ERP in enterprises is the beginning of the entire management revolution. When enterprises need to re-organize and integrate their own resources, they will face changes, including business processes, staffing, and product configuration rationalization. Then, only the chairman or general manager of the company can lead this change. Only when they reach a consensus with the project team can the ERP project start.

Secondly, enterprises should clarify their own purposes and needs, first conduct self-analysis and diagnosis, and then thoroughly investigate the customers served by multiple suppliers and suppliers, if necessary, ask the management consulting institution to participate in planning and identification. Enterprises should do a good job of Input and Output Analysis and pay attention to the rationality of costs. They should neither unilaterally pursue software with comprehensive functions, nor save the temporary cost to make the selected software unable to meet the development needs of enterprises, both practical and open. It is best for suppliers to have the service experience of customers in the same industry and to have successful ERP implementation cases so as to reduce implementation risks and greatly shorten the implementation cycle in preparation of basic data such as the software coding system. At the same time, it is necessary to examine the comprehensive strength of software suppliers, the quality of implementers and their subsequent service capabilities.

Once again, the implementation of the ERP project depends on the entire team. To successfully implement ERP, you must have a group of implementation consultants who are proficient in ERP management ideas, software technology, and experience in organizing and implementing ERP projects in the Chinese environment. Set up a project team led by the chairman or general manager of the company to manage the entire project, and select and assign effective trustees. At the bottom of the project team, the application consultant includes business implementation and technical implementation to implement the two projects. The second is that the management consultant ensures the project's success and controls the project's progress and direction, finally, the consultant is responsible for integrating businesses and improving management. The Application Consultant works closely with specific business and technical personnel of the enterprise. The management consultant works with the middle-level leaders of the enterprise to communicate with the senior leaders of the enterprise. In this way, the entire project can communicate with each other and ensure smooth communication at all links.

Fourth, pay attention to training and continue to run through. To successfully implement ERP, we must pay attention to training. Instead of simply operating the system, the training should be conducted from the implementation of the project to the later stage, system training is conducted in stages, content, personnel, and management layers. The training must also have a complete training knowledge base. The knowledge of employees should be unified by means of training, so as to improve management concepts and technical skills. Otherwise, the software may be used, but the employees may not really accept it; otherwise, the data and system may not be in place.

Fifth, the regulations for implementing ERP enterprises should be implemented. While implementing ERP, we must make great efforts to make reasonable adjustments and modifications to the company's previous system so that it can promote the implementation of the project. In addition to the maintenance of hardware network facilities by computer technicians, it is particularly important to update the data of operators in various departments in a timely manner. Some ERP implementation systems and solutions can be implemented as appropriate.

FinallyProgramControl and coordination between all parties. The implementation of ERP is divided into three phases: basic data preparation and standardization in the early stage, handover definition in the middle stage, business process restructuring, and adaptation period in the later stage, manual and computer parallel jobs are implemented to gradually solve the inadaptability of the original manual jobs to computer jobs. The implementation process includes project initiation, team formation, design, coding, testing, data preparation, software installation, software debugging, project trial run, secondary development, and formal project operation. Each stage requires strong leadership and coordination, otherwise there will be risks of interruption, delay, and overbudgeting.

In short, rating the Capability Maturity of enterprise ERP implementation can effectively plan, organize, lead and control the project process, it can assess the work of ERP application enterprises, ERP software companies and ERP consulting companies, so as to promote a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises in China to improve the success rate of ERP implementation.

Therefore, in order to better grasp and use this revolutionary management tool, it is necessary to have a clear understanding of the difficulties and methods in ERP implementation.

 

Reprinted from: http://cio.ciw.com.cn/cio07/20071119105332.shtml