Project Background
Growth was literally on the horizon at Unisia
of Georgia Corporation, (UGC). As you
approach their Monroe, GA facility, a second 110,000 square foot building is rapidly
completing construction on the site.
InterBizs PRMS is the
primary operating system for production of a variety of electronic and mechanical Engine
Control Units for Nissan. These include
Purge Control valves, Crank angle sensors and valve timing controls. An impending contract with Ford is expected to
fill the new building and provide opportunities for even more expansion.
With
these objectives in mind, Unisia turned to Systems Conversion Ltd., (SCL) of
Cartersville, Georgia. UGC was
familiar with this respected consulting firms experienced personnel, breadth of
technical resources, and superior project-implementation methodology from their initial
PRMS implementation success in 1998.
Project Planning
Systems Conversion conducted a systems
evaluation, keeping several factors in mind:
· PRMS was the only ERP system most people at UGC had
known.
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There were a limited number of people to re-train.
·
The emphasis would be on Planning and Shop Floor, with some attention given to
Order Entry and Purchasing/Receiving.
·
UGC management realized that raising users skill level and confidence
was key to continuing success.
Systems Conversions findings
confirmed what UGC management had suspected. Many
current employees came on board after initial training and implementation. As a result,
planning and shop floor execution was not getting full benefit of PRMS functionality. Many processes had become manual efforts. Re-training and familiarization with the
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softwares
capabilities would be required to keep UGC on track when daily activity increases
dramatically. In short, UGC had a very
capable ERP system, but the software was significantly misunderstood and under-utilized.
UGC then contracted with Systems
Conversion to provide consulting services including education for Manufacturing Set up,
Planning, Repetitive execution, Purchasing and Order Entry.
In addition, there were days scheduled for a process review and consolidated pilot
activities. There were concerns about some
specific functions in PRMS including:
·
Bills of Material effectivity dates
·
Soft bills of material accuracy
·
Material Requirements Planning and order allocation
These
along with other issues would be specifically addressed in the education phase of the
project.
SCL consultants also
determined that additional PRMS technical training would be beneficial. UGC agreed with this assessment and
authorized additional training in this area. This
benefits all users by providing improved IT staff support.
Systems Conversion recommended,
as they always do, that a copy of UGCs live production database be used for class. By using this instead of generic training data,
exercises for the classes would closely reflect real world situations. This recommendation yielded two very real results:
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