Back to basics

The business of being a manufacturer isn't getting any easier, notes Alain de Martin de Viviés, European pre-sales lead for Sage ERP X3, Sage's mainstream ERP solution for the midmarket. Consider, for instance, the challenges posed by globalisation, rapidly changing marketplaces, a need for continuous innovation in terms of products and services – and of course, ever-present risks and constraints, heightened by the current economic climate. Put all that together, says de Viviés, and it quickly becomes apparent that the sort of ERP solution that was adequate for yesterday's business environment won't meet the needs of today's environment. Far less tomorrow's. So what will meet those needs? What does a best-in-class ERP solution for today and tomorrow look like? And how does that relate to the question of integration? And the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is best summed up by the word 'specificity'. In other words, a best-in-class ERP solution is one which perfectly meets the needs of business, whatever the nature of the business that a given manufacturer carries out, and whatever the nature of the business challenges that they face. What's more, he continues, that specificity shouldn't come with an expensive price tag, or be onerous or time-consuming to implement, consuming vast amounts of internal resource. Better still, he adds, an approach of aiming to deliver specificity handily helps to minimise integration headaches: too many manufacturers, says de Viviés, buy the wrong ERP system – and then have to shoulder the burden of integrating it to niche auxiliary systems in order to acquire the missing functionality, thereby adding cost, complexity and inefficiency to the business. "In today's world, businesses have enough on their plate without dealing with the challenges of an expensive ERP system that takes forever to implement and integrate with other systems in order to deliver vital functionality," says de Viviés. "The goal isn't just about getting up and running very quickly – it's about getting up and running very inexpensively, and very efficiently." Put like that, he adds, it becomes much easier to define best-in-class ERP in terms of what it should look like, as opposed to defining it in terms of what it shouldn't be. Thinking outside the box For a start, it should be possible for a manufacturer to orient the system around pre-defined best practices. Long gone are the days when companies spent many long months analysing how they did things, and then re-engineering those business processes to produce simpler and more efficient ways of carrying out business, and then building those processes into their ERP system. Instead, insists de Viviés, those simpler and more efficient ways of carrying out business should come ready to run, straight out of the box, supplied by the ERP vendor in the form of proven template-based best practices, already pre-defined in the product. Needless to say, he adds, Sage ERP X3 does precisely this – giving Sage an edge over many of its competitors, he notes. "We have all the predefined templates that a manufacturer needs in order to get up and running in as little as 35 man-days," he says. "They're the best practices that have come from our implementations and user base over 25 years, embedded in the system as a series of selectable templates and options, visually presented." Secondly, says de Viviés, a best-in-class ERP solution's drive to deliver specificity should encompass – very precisely – the type of industry in which the manufacturer in question operates. "Too many vendors define 'manufacturing' very simplistically – sometimes so simplistically as to be of little value. A food manufacturer, say, is looking for something very different from the kind of ERP solution which might meet the needs of an engineering firm," he argues. "To meet specific needs, it's important to offer specific features." And once again, needless to say, Sage ERP X3 does exactly that, says de Viviés. Conceptually, he describes it as a series of layers, drilling down in a four-stage process to precisely define a given manufacturer in terms of their industry, the type of manufacturing they carry out, their key business processes, and their pressing business challenges. Equally, a 'tick box' flow chart decision tree is another analogy: at each stage, pick the answer that is the right one for your particular business needs, and move to the next level. "To begin with, we identify the type of manufacturing involved," explains de Viviés. "Is it discrete manufacturing? Or process manufacturing? Or project-based manufacturing? And then, we determine the type of industry. Process manufacturing, for instance, encompasses food and beverage manufacture, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and chemical manufacturing; while discrete might embrace hi-tech, automotive and industrial equipment." Then, the focus moves away from the type of manufacturing and type of industry, and instead looks at the nature of the business processes and challenges that are involved. "In terms of business processes, for instance, we'll look to see if a manufacturer is make-to-order, make-to-stock, or is a project-based engineered-to-order manufacturer," says de Viviés. "Then, finally, we'll turn to the business challenges that they face – cost-reduction challenges, the need to reduce time-to-market, or the need to improve customer service, for example." And it's this latter stage, says de Viviés, that again helps Sage to differentiate itself from competitors, by determining very early on in the project the nature of the business partners and third party applications provider with whom a Sage customer might benefit from working. "We have premium business partners with a great depth of skills in industries such as automotive, pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, and hi-tech," he notes. "They're the right people, with the right knowledge, and they can talk to the manufacturer's own people in the manufacturer's own language. It all helps to get the right system in place, in the right timescale, and at the right cost." Best of all, he says, Sage ERP X3 is well-equipped with 'connectors': pre-defined and built interfaces with which to communicate with the best-of-breed third party applications which suit a particular manufacturer's circumstances – particularly in the case of industry specifics, or meeting particular business challenges. Should the need be for advanced planning and scheduling, for instance, Sage ERP X3 has relationships with – and pre-defined connectors for – the products of two leading specialists: Preactor and Ortems. In the case of product lifecycle management, the relationships – and connectors – are in respect of Audros and Lascom. For manufacturing execution systems, it's Osys, and for sales forecasting, it's Dynasys and Azap. And for barcoding, warehousing and tracking solutions, it's Datalink. Similarly, specialist relationships and pre-built connectors apply for computerised maintenance management, electronic document management and 'IT for Green'. In short, sums up de Viviés, the key to a successful 'integration lite' best-in-class ERP system is to precisely understand the nature of the business in question, its competitive context and challenges, and the type of manufacturing involved. This approach, he stresses, works to both eliminate the unnecessary integration involved in respect of third party applications that aren't really needed – because the ERP solution already fully covers the customer's requirements – as well as highlighting instances where third party applications can genuinely add value. And in those cases, Sage ERP X3 has built-in connectors, and strong partnerships with the vendors in question. Better still, he adds, it's possible for manufacturers to implement the same solution – Sage ERP X3 – in either a standard way, using best practices and templates, so as to maximise speed of implementation and minimise cost; or alternatively go for a fully-customised approach, to reflect very specific customer requirements. Or, indeed, 'mix and match' between the two, opting for customisation in some areas, and plug-in best practices in others. "At Sage, we try to make the solution fit the business – and not the business fit the solution," he concludes. It's a small difference, but a vital one."