Operational Excellence with the right ERP solution

As we’re now almost two months into 2021, it’s time to start realizing this year’s plans. As I mentioned in my previous blog, “Reflecting and Looking to the Future,” there are many ways to optimize business operations in the following areas:

• Digital Transformation
• Supply Chain Integration
• Operational Excellence
• Data-Driven Enterprise

In this blog, I’ll place more emphasis on Operational Excellence, as many companies still have significant room to improve their processes, which can help them increase their margins.

Current Practice

Many companies, after implementing an ERP system, fail to optimize it further. They’re relieved to be live, to have trained users, to see key processes running smoothly, and to experience minimal disruptions. However, if no active policy is pursued to expand and optimize the system further, it will gradually become outdated and fail to meet the evolving needs and demands of the business. Eventually, this leads to the need for a costly upgrade or replacement, requiring additional expenses for software and implementation. For both our JD Edwards and NetSuite clients, this scenario is unnecessary and undesirable.

How can this be prevented?

It’s essential to schedule the following activities regularly:

1. Determine key initiatives based on business strategy and objectives
2. Identify changed business processes
3. Address any bottlenecks experienced by ERP system users
4. Identify ERP improvements that can contribute to objectives and initiatives

By scheduling these actions regularly, your organization can determine which initiatives could lead to improvements. Together with our consultants, we can brainstorm solutions and assess the ROI and priority of potential optimizations.

A few practical examples

Enhanced user experience using JD Edwards Orchestrator

For one of our commodity trading clients, we recently created integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams using the JD Edwards Orchestrator. These integrations improve the user experience by automating procedure steps based on various scenarios. For instance, employees can approve orders via Slack on their mobile phones. This is a great application of the new features in JD Edwards version 9.2, leading to increased efficiency.

Real-time integrations Tableau for NetSuite and Tableau for JD Edwards

For one of our commodity trading clients, we recently created integrations with Slack and Microsoft Teams using the JD Edwards Orchestrator. These integrations improve the user experience by automating procedure steps based on various scenarios. For instance, employees can approve orders via Slack on their mobile phones. This is a great application of the new features in JD Edwards version 9.2, leading to increased efficiency.

Taking Timely Action by Using Watchlists

More and more JD Edwards and NetSuite clients use handy alerts called Watchlists to monitor essential actions. These alerts appear automatically on the screen or dashboard, indicating when attention is needed, such as an order that might arrive late. This allows for quick action and problem prevention rather than reactive resolution.

A complete contracts and quotes module in NetSuite simplifies and speeds up processes

In the standard NetSuite software, we implemented a complete contracts and quotes module. We created templates with various text blocks that generate a contract or quote based on parameters from client, quote, and order data. This can be emailed directly to the right contact person. The integration with an online signature application is the last step we’re implementing. This approach greatly simplifies and accelerates the entire order and quote process.

More information or sparring?

Consistently maintaining and optimizing your ERP system pays off. There are many opportunities to further optimize the system. It all starts with regularly scheduling and discussing the abordt het hele order en offerte proces enorm vereenvoudigd en versneld.