5 Biggest ERP Implementation Challenges Manufacturing Firms Face
Having trouble optimizing your ERP system? You may be dealing with one of these challenges — read on to discover how to solve your ERP problems.
As powerful as ERP systems can be, they’re not always easy for a manufacturing firm like yours to set up. They’re complicated, and require careful configuration and management to ensure they run properly.
happier IT will help you streamline the process by managing your ERP implementation for you. Our team has extensive experience working with manufacturing firms, and can remove any obstacles you encounter with IT projects like this.
What Is An ERP System?
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems handle the management of core business processes, in real-time, using a combination of various software and technology.
An ERP system is a class of enterprise software that will ease real-time management of data from across the different departments of your organization. These may include:
Sales
Purchases
Accounting
Manufacturing
ERP software systems will greatly simplify individual functions throughout your organization by automating them. ERP systems will also keep track of your business resources.
As beneficial as solutions like these are, there’s still the challenge of having to implement them. Have you been running into these obstacles at your firm?
5 ERP Implementation Challenges You Need To Address
Project Management: The ERP implementation process is so complex that it often vastly exceeds the scale and scope of any past projects your internal team may have handled. Without direct experience with this type of project, a team can easily underestimate the time and resources needed to see it to fruition.
Data Quality & Integration: A critical step in your ERP implementation is the migration of all your firm’s data. It forms the foundation for how effective your ERP system will be. That means having an accurate inventory of all your data, including where it is, and what it concerns. Given how detail-oriented this process is, it tends to be the most time-consuming part of the implementation. Furthermore, you need to attend to your data quality as well. You can’t just port overall data from every department in your firm, as there will invariably be duplicates of files that are used by more than one user or team. That means addressing your “data hygiene” as well, ensuring there are no duplicates, that files are named properly, and more.
Change Management: Adopting an ERP system concerns more than your data — it also affects your users. In order to harness the full range of advantages offered by the solution, you need to change the way your staff operates. This means adapting and developing new business processes, and training your team to engage fully with the new system.
Cost Overruns: In relation to project management, it’s important that you budget for more than you may think you need. ERP projects are notorious for going past deadlines and over budget. When this happens, firms tend to enlist expert third-party support, which comes at an even great expense. When planning out your implementation, make sure to give yourself room to operate.
Continuous Improvement: It’s important that you understand that implementing an ERP system effectively is not a one-time thing. While you may finally succeed in launching an ERP system for your firm at the start, the system needs careful maintenance and management in the long term as well.
What’s The Most Important Factor In The Successful Implementation Of An ERP System?
The highest priority in any ERP system implementation is understanding how it integrates with your organization. You need to consult everyone who will interact with the system and document each and everything they will do with the system. That allows you to pinpoint the most important considerations, and migrate successfully.
ERP implementations often fail because the organization either didn’t know or failed to communicate their needs, or had unrealistic expectations about the implementation or legacy data migration. That’s why analysis and information gathering are so important.
Need Expert Assistance In Selecting & Maintaining ERP Systems?
happier IT is here to help — we are partnered with a number of ERP companies who offer different products, suited to the needs of a wide range of different types of businesses. By evaluating your needs and intended uses, we can help you narrow down the list of potential choices.
As your ERP management partner, our primary function is to maintain those systems and keep them running 24/7/365. Get in touch with our team to get started.