Four Ways to Botch Your ERP Implementation Part 4

4 Ways to Botch Your ERP Systems Implementation Part 4

4. Reinvent the wheel.

A fourth and final way to foul up an enterprise applications implementation process is to
reinvent the wheel by disregarding established implementation methods. Regardless of the
implementation provider or the enterprise software product you choose, your implementation
team will come in with an implementation method consisting of specific steps to go through
in order to ensure success. This implementation method is proven, and has been developed
over long experience at dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of companies.

Implementation consultants and application vendors follow this method because it suits their
approach and the software in question. While methods of different implementation providers
may vary, a viable method will generally include four distinct steps:

Mapping
At this stage of the project, a consultant will identify the business processes you will
implement, and determine how, at a business process level, they will be handled by the
software. IFS, for instance, uses its own IFS Business Modeler software for documentation of
all process levels, automating the process of finding functional gaps and working them
through to a solution.

Implementation-Definition
During the implementation-definition phase, the consultant and implementation team will
take the process maps and work through the details. There might be several rounds of work
routine documentation, modeling data migration to make sure processes are well
documented and that they will work.

Testing
During the testing phase, the consultant and implementation team will tie all of the
processes together and test them to make sure they will work. One way to do this is to run
several days of the company’s transactions through the system, end to end, in a controlled
business simulation environment.

Rollout
After mapping, implementation-definition, and testing are completed, it is time to roll the
application out to users in the organization. This step involves training the users and
ensuring that the IT infrastructure is in place to run the application prior to going live.

All of these steps are absolutely necessary. But sometimes, in a budget crunch or on a tight
timeline, there is the temptation to cut out some testing or some mapping. Even if you are
not trying to reinvent the wheel in its entirety, it is not advisable to simply remove a few
spokes to see how it holds up under load! Skimping on any of these steps comes with a
degree of risk that needs to be recognized. Straying from the established implementation
method creates the opportunity for things to go wrong at a critical time—during go-live week
or after go live, as poor preparation comes home to roost. Typically, problems that result
from diverging from proven methods cost more to fix than a more thorough and systematic
implementation would have cost to begin with.

About the Author

Jeff Kugler is a solutions consultant with the Milwaukee, Wisconsin (US) office of IFS North
America. Before entering the software industry, Kugler worked in manufacturing and
operations. He has managed implementations both as a customer and as a consultant, and
is active in lean manufacturing advocacy both inside and outside of IFS. He holds a BA in
computer science from Lakeland College in Sheboygan, Wisconsin.