Easier ERP implementation? Historically, enterprise resource planning has the reputation of being a project that takes longer to implement than the tenures of those who OK'd the implementation. Then in the face of the year-2000 crisis, ERP implementations became quicker and, dare say, somewhat easier. What happened?

Automotive Design & Production, Jan, 2005 by Lawrence S. Gould

Agreeing with that is Dave Van Noord, vice president of global product management for Infor Global Solutions (Northville, MI; www.infor.com). He says ERP vendors can't just come in with some generic "this-thing-works-for-everybody," deal out some best business practices, and then expect the user company to do just that. In automotive, he says, "you don't get to pick your customer's best practice; your customer picks that for you." And automotive ERP does have some "crucial" best practices that ERP needs to handle innately, such as electronic data interchange, release accounting, kanban and just-in-time sequencing, and vendor managed inventory.

QAD and Infor, to name two ERP vendors, have separate ERP applications by industry. These are not one-off customizations by vertical; these are separate applications that contain industry-specific functionality. QAD, for instance, supports six verticals within manufacturing. Explains Lopker, QAD doesn't "preset anything for automotive. We ship our standard product with our standard modules for automotive. We have some modules, such as release accounting, that are only used by automotive."

FUNCTION-POINT IMPLEMENTATIONS

Some enterprises find that a more "function-point" orientation is faster when implementing ERP, says Mixer. These companies get "quick deployments out of the box [by] picking a module of ERP capability and rolling it out globally where it makes sense." One caveat: While that may work in financials and human resources, says Mixer, that doesn't "necessarily map to the workflows in the manufacturing environment," which is far more complex, industry-specific, and enterprise-specific.

Another strategy that seems to speed up ERP implementation is to use "greenfield" plants as a blueprint--a template--going forward. Mixer points out that several companies are investing in ERP infrastructure and manufacturing workflow processes--in China. They then slowly bring that implementation west, "riding the curve of production capacity as they need it"; that is, the user companies apply the "blueprints" from the greenfield plants to update their European plants and, last, their North American plants. This strategy, adds Mixer, often yields a more seamless enterprise better able to share information between applications.

Yet another strategy to facilitating ERP implementation combines old and new approaches. The Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Group (Duluth, GA; www.microsoft.com/BusinessSolutions/Industry/Automotive.aspx) works on developing "core level functionality" that meets the needs of the average manufacturing facility. Says MBS partner Jerry Czernel, who is vice president of operations for AIM Computer Solutions, Inc. (Fraser, MI), "Less could actually be more." His company strips away all the extraneous code that small- to medium-sized manufacturers don't use, such as having an ERP package that's translated into several languages. While a core of "best practices" are a good foundation for ERP, at some point, says David Weger, MBS senior product manager, automotive industry, "the customer wants that 'last mile.' There's always some customization that comes about." At that point, MBS relies on its partners and independent software vendors to bring in industry expertise, dive deeper into the software code, and modify the ERP system for the user's specific business needs.