Usability Drives Profitability

The complexities of modern manufacturing production systems, improvement methodologies, and global supply chains beg for enterprise resource planning (ERP)

that is accessible throughout an organization.

Employees at all levels need easily implemented, scalable, and self-maintaining user tools that enable rapid, data-based decisions that move the company closer to meeting strategic goals.

Unfortunately, many older ERP systems weren’t designed to provide such wide and deep engagement. For all the power that still resides in these systems, they leave many manufacturers without the information and tools they need.

New Plants, New Needs

In plants of the past, machinery, information technology systems, and operators digitally spoke to one another via one-way conversations with unique purposes, such as process control, warehouse tracking, equipment maintenance, and materials replenishment. Early ERP systems offered adequate planning in this environment, but their passive nature is now completely out of sync with the needs of today’s plants, which are designed for rapid execution and adoption of improvements in both products and processes.

In fact, according to MPI’s 2012 Manufacturing Study, 82 percent of manufacturing plants now have improvement methodology in place (59 percent identify lean manufacturing as one of their methods), and more than two-thirds of manufacturers report at least moderate depth and breadth in applying their improvement approach. In addition, 69 percent report the presence of a continuous improvement (CI) program.

These widespread improvement efforts mean that thousands of employees across the industrial sector are seeking data to support their CI efforts. In facilities with aging ERP systems, this information can be hard to find—if it’s even available at all.

Companies with modern, usable ERP systems can foster proactive problem-solving in many ways. These include:

• Earlier capture of production gains through ease of use. The sooner operators are proficient with enterprise software, the sooner they make better decisions to improve plantfloor productivity.
• Better cross-training on tasks and functions. Employees become more valuable because they can cover absences and keep production running according to plan. Everyone becomes a starter, and no one sits on the bench.
• Faster employee access to vital data. Role-based IT tools provide employees with critical knowledge and facts, which ensures accuracy in decision-making. Even when there is no “right” answer, operators have the knowledge to choose the best answer.

It’s critical to advance the usability of an ERP system, which can improve a plant’s ability to measure performance. A best practice of the world’s most efficient plants is to use graphs and time-series analysis to depict the strategic contributions of cells, teams, plants, functions, and other groups in increments as small as an hour.

These measures roll up into daily, weekly, monthly, and annual strategic performance measures such as speed, quality, cost, productivity, and financial returns.

Capturing performance measures on an ongoing basis motivates individuals because they have real-time visibility into how their contributions influence plant and company perfor- mance—and how they can fix lapses and bridge gaps.

According to the MPI Group’s 2013 Next Generation Manufacturing Study, just 70 percent of manufacturers have, at best, only occasional capture of operations knowledge and experiences, such as process improvements, which can be used to improve operations.

In addition, manufacturers fail to provide employees—from senior staff to frontline workers—with the information they need to evaluate the effectiveness of returns from their company’s strategic efforts. For example, only 19 percent of manufacturers report regular monitoring and review of company-specific merits by the CEO and senior staff and transparency and clarity throughout the organization for reviewing returns from process improvements.

Supporting Continuous Operations

Also driving the demand for better ERP usability is new thinking on IT return on investment. In a competitive global economy, investors and corporate leaders won’t tolerate lengthy software implementations that disrupt daily operations and cash flow. Leaders also increasingly favor investments that quickly add lasting competitive advantage through innovation. In today’s data-rich world, this usually means improving access to knowledge and insight rather than adding labor.

Manufacturers also want more usable ERP systems because they employ fewer people overall, and therefore require smaller IT support staffs. To keep daily operations running smoothly, frontline employees are handling many tasks previously performed by IT. Production teams need ERP systems with consumerlike system navigation and self-service features, such as report-writing.

Improved ERP functionality also provides an advantage in recruiting, leveraging, and retaining talent.

As manufacturing professionals retire, the younger workers that are replacing them bring heightened expectations for enterprise software such as easy-to-use tools that encourage continuous improvement and learning, as well as immediacy in decision-making and action. They want the speed of texting, the clarity of instant photosharing, and the intuitiveness of an app.

Do You Need Better ERP Usability?

To determine if your ERP system is as usable as it needs to be, look first at the front-end user interface. You should see:

1. Familiar-looking interfaces, dashboards, and communication tools like those used by consumer websites and social media communities.
2. Navigation tools that allow for diverse functionality without adding complexity.
3. Role-based pull capability to access critical data quickly, regardless of the function utilizing that data.
4. Immediate digital documentation and tagging of conversations, actions, and results.
5. Robust and rapid search functionality.

From a planning perspective, the system should scale according to need and support global expansion, including features such as multiple languages and reporting and compliance variation. Flexibility is an important part of usability and makes mergers, new-product introductions, and other large-scale changes less disruptive and costly while shortening the timeline to realizing gains.

Functionally, the system should also be inclusive without slowing the performance of power users, and upgrades and enhancements should be painless and seamless. It should be run on remote servers and be sold as SaaS (software as a service), but even traditional ERP suppliers are emphasizing usability by increasing their pace of new releases. If these requirements aren’t being met, it’s time to look to options that offer more flexibility and usability.

ERP remains a foundational element of sound manufacturing management, but new technologies and management models, the competitive pressures of globalization, and changes in employee expectations are driving demands for better usability.

Whether manufacturers enhance existing systems or invest in new ones, assessing ERP for usability is a must to maximize growth and profitability improvements.

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