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Joe Cruse
I wasn't sure where to post this, and this is not a thread to ask for advice on choosing or installing an ERP system, but more of a "tell me about your experience", if your employer is running an ERP system or is getting ready to. Maybe this might be a "share how you survived Go-Live".
For me, the company I have worked for 20+ year now sold to a new group, exactly 4 years ago this week. Soon after they bought us, they let us know they were looking at putting an ERP system in place for us, 2 other sister plants, and corporate. Our plant had been using an IBM AS400 system for probably 20+ years, at that point (anyone else?), and we had an AS400 programmer on the corporate staff. The CEO's nephew is corporate IT Mgr, and was the lead in evaluating, purchasing, and installing an ERP. We make alloy here, not discreet widgets, and a batch process production style does not play well with many systems. They ended up going with Infor's Syteline, and IT, the Syteline vendor, and the location teams (I was on ours) spent the next 2 years moving the project. IT told us EVERYTHING we had was to roll into the ERP, and we would also be shipping product in the ERP. 4-6 months out from Go-Live, the sales manager at corporate, also a nephew of the CEO and brother to IT Mgr, announced that we would be using the Russian-developed shipping software they were currently using to handle ALL shipping activities, and that this software would have to be bridged to the ERP. 6 months later, they announced that we would go live in 30 days, and would be taking both programs live at once, with no thought of starting one first and getting through any bugs with it, and then starting the second one.
The first month was the worst month of my entire working career, with 80+ hour weeks by a group of 4 of us (no one from corporate did this. In fact, I was told by mgt to quit calling the sales staff to have them correct their mistakes). I was looking to go back to working manual labor on a local tobacco farm, or stocking grocery shelves again. Finally, by month 8, it began to jive, as we were able to cajole IT to add this piece or that, lest we not be able to close the financials at month's end. Now at 1.5 years in, we are still not close to everything the corporate officers want from this, but we are operating in it, and no one jumped from the top of the furnace buildings, and even more important, I did not throw a few people off the top. Surprisingly, we did not miss even ONE shipment at any time, which was a testament to the local team here (another site did miss). I know some of our steel customers are using ERP systems now, and the same year we went live, one of the big ones took SAP live at 6-8 US-based plants, and some locations could not ship a single coil of steel in the first week or so. I cannot imaging the frustration...
Anyway, if you want to play along here, or commiserate, or ask about implementation, chime in! I'd like to hear your experience, in either coming into a new job and learning to navigate an ERP system, or your experience in a place that is in implementation.
Joe Cruse
For me, the company I have worked for 20+ year now sold to a new group, exactly 4 years ago this week. Soon after they bought us, they let us know they were looking at putting an ERP system in place for us, 2 other sister plants, and corporate. Our plant had been using an IBM AS400 system for probably 20+ years, at that point (anyone else?), and we had an AS400 programmer on the corporate staff. The CEO's nephew is corporate IT Mgr, and was the lead in evaluating, purchasing, and installing an ERP. We make alloy here, not discreet widgets, and a batch process production style does not play well with many systems. They ended up going with Infor's Syteline, and IT, the Syteline vendor, and the location teams (I was on ours) spent the next 2 years moving the project. IT told us EVERYTHING we had was to roll into the ERP, and we would also be shipping product in the ERP. 4-6 months out from Go-Live, the sales manager at corporate, also a nephew of the CEO and brother to IT Mgr, announced that we would be using the Russian-developed shipping software they were currently using to handle ALL shipping activities, and that this software would have to be bridged to the ERP. 6 months later, they announced that we would go live in 30 days, and would be taking both programs live at once, with no thought of starting one first and getting through any bugs with it, and then starting the second one.
The first month was the worst month of my entire working career, with 80+ hour weeks by a group of 4 of us (no one from corporate did this. In fact, I was told by mgt to quit calling the sales staff to have them correct their mistakes). I was looking to go back to working manual labor on a local tobacco farm, or stocking grocery shelves again. Finally, by month 8, it began to jive, as we were able to cajole IT to add this piece or that, lest we not be able to close the financials at month's end. Now at 1.5 years in, we are still not close to everything the corporate officers want from this, but we are operating in it, and no one jumped from the top of the furnace buildings, and even more important, I did not throw a few people off the top. Surprisingly, we did not miss even ONE shipment at any time, which was a testament to the local team here (another site did miss). I know some of our steel customers are using ERP systems now, and the same year we went live, one of the big ones took SAP live at 6-8 US-based plants, and some locations could not ship a single coil of steel in the first week or so. I cannot imaging the frustration...
Anyway, if you want to play along here, or commiserate, or ask about implementation, chime in! I'd like to hear your experience, in either coming into a new job and learning to navigate an ERP system, or your experience in a place that is in implementation.
Joe Cruse
