Upgrade Systems Now?

In our consulting practice, we see a wide variety of systems in use to support various business, operations, and engineering functions. Business systems range from Quickbooks Pro to fully implemented ERP systems.  Yield management may be handled with Access databases or sophisticated yield analysis tools. Supply chain management may be handled with Excel spreadsheets or powerful supply/demand software.  And the list goes on... When a company is small, many things can be done somewhat manually.  As the company grows and becomes more complex, however, it is difficult to effectively use brute force to manage many different functions. Employee hours balloon, mistakes are made, and customer service levels erode.

There is no "zero impact" time to upgrade systems. It requires the involvement of key players throughout the organization to ensure that the potential benefits are achieved. Many companies reason that we can handle things manually now, so we'll wait until we can't and then upgrade. The problem with this strategy is that when things pick up, everybody starts working longer hours just to get the job done. Now on top of that, you expect employees to spend several hours per week doing the things to get ready for the changeover. Though the system will save time when up and running, it creates a greater load on people during the installation. I could go on and on about the consequences, but you probably get the idea. I offer up an alternative for consideration. We believe that it is more effective and less painful if the systems are upgraded before the environment is hectic chaos.  I think in most instances, the set-up and implementation will be better and employee attitudes about the system will be more positive. I liken it to changing the engine on a 747: it is much easier to change on the ground than in the air.