Case Studies - Business Process and Systems Alignment

Business Process and Systems Alignment

Business Challenge

An engineered products manufacturing company with multiple locations and many disparate management information systems was struggling with serious process breakdowns. The causes were primarily due to poor information sharing, data integrity problems, and overly complex business processes with numerous manual handoffs across facilities and business systems. After eLogic had the opportunity to assess the situation, it became apparent that these problems were the result of a myriad of dramatic changes to the business that could not be sufficiently digested by the organization.

The changes included:

The introduction of a new ERP system at the headquarters location which is also the company's largest production facility
The elimination of obsolete ERP systems at other production locations
Product consolidations and production re-organizations at many facilities
The introduction of a new production facility in Mexico
The acquisition of new companies which introduced new sales channel, business practices and brands/products
An attempt to centralize the customer service organization failed due to lack of integration order and fulfillment information
High employee turnover and the loss of "tribal" process knowledge

In addition, the new ERP system was not effectively deployed, and employees did not receive proper training. Business processes were not sufficiently standardized for use across functional areas, and in some cases, transactional procedures were so loosely defined that they were routinely circumvented and modified on an ad hoc basis by users trying to get the work done. The situation seriously impeded this company's ability to operate the business effectively, and adversely impacted productivity, quality, profitability and customer service.

eLogic Business Solution

eLogic was engaged to define, upgrade, document and implement business processes, as well as re-configure the new ERP system to align it with the business processes. eLogic started the process by defining a comprehensive list of all business processes that needed to be created, revised, or eliminated. The processes were then prioritized based on criticality, impact on the business and complexity to implement. Those with the highest priorities selected for immediate implementation. This approach enabled quick successes and built momentum for the project throughout the organization. All targeted business processes were properly documented, approved and re-implemented in conjunction with the required ERP set up changes.

Results Achieved

Benefits included, but were not limited to:

Developed clearly visible performance metrics as a basis for continuous process improvement
Clear definition and simplification of critical business processes resulting in the elimination of transactional errors
Elimination of problems caused by functional staff not understanding the impact of process deviations on other processes and functions
Improved productivity
Improved inventory accuracy
Improved order processing cycle times
Improved user acceptance through higher quality results and better communication that now takes place in a more orderly and predictable process