My friends Keith and Sean from the company REVEAL recently shared an excellent meal with me in old Montreal. Keith and I were both featured speakers at the Logistics and Supply Chain Management conferences in sunny Orlando (2012) and Fabulous Las Vegas (2013).
My speaking engagements were centered on Sales and Operations transformation as well as Supply Chain Optimization. We also both share the same insights on business fundamentals and how to lower operating costs in a supply chain.
- Our SAP systems are data driven. Stop listening to people’s bullshit and vague opinions and start extracting data DIRECTLY from your SAP system. The LIS (Logistics Information System) in SAP has first-rate standard inventory, production and procurement reporting transactions. Show this data to senior management to get constructive discussions under way.
- There are many excellent standard SAP reports and graphs to showcase trends. I have seen companies with brilliant programmers that construct brilliant programs. Sure, this is great for the short term but once you have to upgrade your SAP system these programs WILL FAIL. Use standard reporting to avoid failing custom build reports. I’ve also seen consultants brought in with fantastic advanced degrees to create fantastic inventory reports out of fantastic excel programs with fantastic macros built in. Sadly SAP had the same report and accompanying graph one click away. : (
- Set KPIS and constantly measure them. Key Performance Indicators are the heart of your Supply Chain. At one company we did an excellent job of measuring not only on time delivery to customers but our internal Master Production Schedule delivery as well. Your internal measurements and accuracy adjustments will drive your on time customer measures. Once this is in place you can also be confident to share your MRP schedule with your suppliers as well. Why share an inaccurate schedule? Don’t look like a fool. Measure key KPIs and always try to link them together.
- Robust change management will be the difference between success and failure. Tackle this first. I recently facilitated an all day work shop with 22 executives and subject matter experts to decide on how to implement SAP into the R&D facility. By having them collaborate with each other and design the future process together with Post Its and my guidance, we came up with a winning solution that we all applauded. It was a tremendously positive and memorable day. Imagine if we had just tried to ram the SAP system into R&D? Can we say epic failure? Strong change management establishes ownership and will drive accountability for the future. Don’t ever underestimate it. EVER!
- Strong transactional security is essential. I’ve seen users destroy the capacity plan because they had access to critical Sales and Operations transactions. We had to trace who the user was and of course they denied everything. If a user does not understand a critical transaction or is not trained their access needs to be revoked immediately. Don’t have your MRP corrupted because of one click from a reckless user. Pay attention to your security. Data corruption will quickly lead to losing your job. Pay attention to Security!
- Make your projects memorable. I love this one. At one company we always created a project kick off that was memorable. We were always asked to create a funny video for the kick off and music and food was included. To this day I fondly remember those projects. People want to be part of something special. Not just a bunch of managers, six sigma experts or users with mind-numbing slides. Make your projects and kick offs memorable.
Terry Vermeylen is an accomplished SAP, Supply Chain and Sales and Operations professional, currently searching for his next big challenge. He owns this website as well as others, and you can find him on LinkedIn tinkering with his profile.