The third in a series of articles following the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 to a Medical Equipment Manufacture

The summer is nearly over and go-live is getting terribly close! The emphasis over the past month has been a combination of practice, practice, practice and trying to pin down the inevitable last minute fixes and occasional items which, somehow, have been hanging around for months but still need a final decision.These little surprises are designed to test the nerve of the most experienced implementer and no matter how hard we try to pin down every possible circumstance, unplanned cases and new scenarios often emerge only as a result of using the new system in action for the first time.

This tends to take us back to standard work and whether the steps we have identified can stand the test of repeatability and clarity. In the earliest stages of the implementation, processes tend to be painted with a broad brush: what is it the business actually does, how do the parts interact and how can we apply the tools in our toolbox in the most effective manner?

Once the broad picture has been painted, we move into the minutiae: agreeing the exact steps in a order process, identifying the codes we use to identify individual types of transaction and getting into the detail of data, its migration and how each individual field will apply to the new system.

The final stages need to strike the balance between the two: we know the broad picture and we know the detail so what we need to do next is provide a clear and unambiguous set of user instructions - standard work if you prefer - which breaks the process down into ‘bite-sized chunks’. Lean practitioners are already familiar with this approach and it pays dividends for two good reasons: the brain finds it easier to absorb small pieces of information at a time (well, mine does) and it is far easier to change one small part of a process than reissue the whole volume, both in terms of retraining and the sheer effort of ditching one version and replacing it with another. Even in this world of SharePoint, getting the message around can be slow and imperfect.

It is inevitable that variations, exceptions and even new processes or sub-processes will crop up at the last minute: people cannot remember every circumstance and sometimes only a chance remark or an order from that difficult customer who insists on a special delivery or a modified document triggers a person to remind you that we really need to go back to that process which we thought had been nailed-down months ago. But, if you have good standard work, broken down in to simple instructions in discrete steps, then even a last-minute change of process stands a good chance of being picked-up and understood by everybody who needs to use it.

Now, where’s my to-do list...

The 2nd in a series of articles following the implementation of Lean Manufacturing in Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009 to a Medical Equipment Manufacturer

Last month I detailed how my customer is preparing to implement Lean Manufacturing in Microsoft Dynamics AX. Part of this preparation involves the implementation of a Plan for Every Part and over the past few weeks our customer team has been preparing this plan in detail. Much of this has been of a fairly mundane nature, converting existing spreadsheets into a format that can be used by Dynamics AX and although this part seems more like an exercise for the techies, there is something pretty exciting seeing the Kanban data in the system and ready for testing.

There's no substitute for seeing real data in the system and it does help reinforce the message that the new system is not far away.

Although receiving the data in spreadsheet form saves one heck of a lot of legwork, when it finds its way into Microsoft Dynamics AX and testing follows, several inconsistencies come to light. Sometimes the supply chain turns out not to be entirely continuous with materials being called-up by one work centre not necessarily being supplied by the right warehouse. The other 'biggie' we encountered was one work centre which seemed to hold its inventory in several warehouses. When I asked about this, it seemed that the reasons were entirely sound (largely to do with available space), but the method of controlling this overflow inventory seemed to be surrounded with a little mystery as nobody seemed to know why it was controlled in the way that it was!

This is entirely reasonable and it's good to find these 'funnies' now, rather than after go-live. There is not a company in the world that doesn't have a few inventory skeletons in the closet, and although the reasons may not seem sound today, chances are there was a good reason for them once. The secret now is to address these anomalies and find a solution which can be tested before the Big Day when it all becomes live. Lean transformations are often triggered by compelling events and in turn, our ERP implementation can be used as an equally compelling event to identify, question and eliminate the inconsistencies in your internal value chain.