Any ERP Implementation requires explicit and wide-ranging analysis of the existing system. Furthermore, the scale and complexities associated, requires a well-defined systems approach to take into account various issues related to business, technology, operations, bottlenecks and constraints. Keeping in view the above technical and socio-technical issues, S P A has formulated a 3-tier approach to execute the proposed assignment. Initial discussions will be held with the Senior Management to understand the Vision of The Company, Long Term goals, Corporate/Functional Objectives and the MIS requirements. If this is readily available, it will be adopted by incorporating changes, if any. Intensive workshops will be conducted with the Functional Heads to understand the Short Term and Long Term Planning Procedures, Supply Chain Logistics and the Reporting Requirements and lastly Interaction will be carried out.
Users or Core Team to study, finalize and assign the roles and responsibilities, day-to-day transactions and functional efficiencies. During these interactions a special effort will be made to bring out the relevant change management issues related to SAP Implementation. To critically look at the change management issues and for addressing the business readiness it is essential to clearly understand the business processes. Hence it is necessary to focus on business process mapping, identifying bottlenecks and streamlining process relevant to ensuring successful technology fitment and absorption. The Business Process modeling will be carried out to study and analyze all the Business Processes in three levels.
The project should be executed via methodology that everything should be driven by “BUSINESS PROCESS”. The input to technical development team should be the catalogue of process validated by the process team. The catalogue of process should divide all processes that exist in the project scope into unique processes, sub-processes within those processes and activities within those sub-processes. The breakdown can be seen in the list of catalogue of process:
1. Project Preparation
The purpose of this phase is to provide initial planning and preparation for the Project. Although each project has its own unique objectives, scope and priorities, the steps in the phase one, help identify and plan the primary focus areas to be considered. As we prepare for implementation, there are important issues we must address at the beginning of the project, including:
2. Business Blueprint and Process Simplification
The purpose of this phase is to create the Business Blueprint, which is a detailed documentation of the simplified business process, which will cover all the processes documented in the AS IS phase.
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3. Realization
The purpose of this phase is to implement business and process requirements based on the Business Blueprint. The objectives are final implementation in the system, an overall test and the release of the system for productive (live) operation. The system is configured in two work packages, namely Baseline (major scope) and Final (remaining scope). Multiple module tests and the integration tests are carried out during this phase.
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4. Final Preparation
The purpose of this phase is to complete the final preparation, including testing, user training, system management and cut over activities, to finalize the readiness to go live. This final preparation phase also serves to resolve all crucial open issues. Data collection and Data loading activity is done during this phase. Users are also trained during this phase. On successful completion of this phase, one is ready to run the Business on the productive system.
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5. Go live and support
The purpose of this phase is to move from a pre-production environment to a live productive operation. After loading the closing balances in the system it is handed over to users for productive use. We must set up a support organization for users, not just for the initial critical days of your productive operations but also to provide long term support. During this phase, users have many questions. There must be a solid user support organization easily accessible to all users. This phase is also used to monitor system transactions and to optimize overall system performance.
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Change Management is one of the most critical success factors in SAP implementation this phase shall begin along with the commencement of the implementation project. This involves Change Management workshops to be conducted at various stages of the SAP implementation. The stages are as given below:
Participants, Clerical staff, supervisors, accounting officers, MRP controllers, other officers etc., the workshops and training classes will address the following: