Five Tips for a Successful ERP Integration or Implementation

An ERP integration or new ERP implementation can be a scary thought for a manufacturing company.

There’s always lots of change, new processes to learn, and plenty of moving parts that can result in headaches.

So how do you manage a successful manufacturing ERP integration or implementation?

Thanks to the expertise of longtime ERP consultant Steve Mould, CADTALK breaks down five tips for success below.

If you’re considering an ERP integration with your CAD, PDM, or PLM software, CADTALK may be the perfect solution for you. Schedule a demo or contact us to learn more.

1. Clearly define the scope and deliverables of your ERP integration or implementation project.

The saying “first things first” comes to mind when breaking down the start of your ERP project.

Because projects like this are often a large investment of time and money for manufacturing companies, the last thing you want to see after starting a project is confusion and finger pointing.

That’s why understanding where the project is going and who is responsible for what deliverables is critical to success and avoiding a “false start.”

It seems like common sense – but why is it often a challenge that ERP consultant Steve Mould sees in the projects he manages?

“I’ve been involved in global projects where I’ve got 20 different customer sites all around the world,” Mould said on The Integrate Intelligently Podcast, presented by CADTALK. “And none of them work to a standard set of processes.”

“They all have evolved. So how do you standardize and realign and optimize 20 different sites? It’s a big challenge.”

How does a manufacturing company in this situation manage an ERP integration or implementation?

“The software vendor has to try to come up with strategies that help the client understand what the critical processes are,” Mould said. “You’ve got to know what battles are important in the project and others that are not so important, and you let them stay as they are.

2. Be willing to embrace change and automation, even if you already have a method for executing processes within your ERP.

Another piece of advice from Mould? Let down your guard and be willing to embrace change, even when it’s challenging.

“[Employees] feel threatened if there’s a big change coming. And I don’t think they should feel threatened because I think [integration] is an opportunity to actually take away mundane, repetitive processes and give them a more fulfilling, added value process.”

Automation has made great progress in its capabilities, and while AI has made oodles of recent news, the concept of AI in software development and automation is much more tested and advanced than the recent advent of AI. The technology has simply become more widespread and accessible to the common user.

While automation is often used to remove the monotony of everyday tasks, it can often be better to utilize automation than leave instances up to human error.

Think instances of bank payments or transactions, online invoicing, or other data transfers involving financial information. Removing the human element improves the accuracy of the data and the likelihood of compliance to best regulatory practices.

Mould encourages companies to examine their processes and seek continuous improvement, even if you think there’s no desire in your company to automate a process.

“The engineering team are very usually concentrating on their engineering processes, their PLM, their CAD, their modeling, et cetera,” Mould said. “That bridge to operations is often just thrown over the wall. There's a lot of companies out there that could automate and streamline that bridge.”

3. Data integrity within your ERP is critical to executing projects of all scales.

This tenet is perhaps at the core of any ERP integration or implementation project: your project is only as good as your data.

Without reputable and reliable data, projects can go sideways quickly, or at the very least, incur repeated delays.

Most design engineers and manufacturing engineers would prefer to not be spending their time manually processing bills of material. However, without proper BOM accuracy, the rest of the manufacturing process will struggle.

“If you're doing it manually, you could make loads of mistakes, “ Mould said. “The accuracy of that BOM is really important. Because if you don't have all the bits, you can't assemble the finished product. And if you've not got the right quantities, you're going to look a bit dumb.”

One option for companies seeking to maintain data integrity when transferring data from CAD to ERP is to invest in a software like CADTALK, which automates that process.

CADTALK integrates with numerous leading ERPs like IFS, Infor CloudSuite Industrial, Acumatica, and more.

Mould said that it’s a powerful proposition for engineers looking to free up time normally spent on part management while ensuring even higher levels of data integrity.

“Being able to make sure [the data] comes directly off the CAD model and being able to send that information to ERP with confidence that the integrity of the data is there and that that's not an engineering function, that maybe the project lead would do that piece of work, that's really powerful,” Mould said.

4. Break down your ERP integration or implementation into small chunks to avoid a "big bang" mentality.

Once you’ve made that decision to move forward with an ERP integration or implementation, patience is key.

Some companies tend to treat these projects as one-time events – once the integration is complete, it will never need to be touched again. Therefore, let’s complete the project as fast as possible and move on to the next project.

However, this mindset comes with great pitfalls – mainly that even if you invest in a quality ERP or an integration software, you’ll likely not get the most out of your investment.

Instead of treating integrations or implementations as one-time events, Mould recommends breaking down these projects in smaller elements to avoid this “big bang” mentality that flies in the face of embracing continuous improvement.

“That’s a much safer and lower risk approach,” Mould said. “Let’s say that every month, we have a drop that is a deliverable that’s adding value. I think that’s a much nicer way to go.”

5. Understand that the ERP integration plan can't be the software vendor's plan - it's the customer's plan.

Ultimately, a quality business that is conducting an ERP integration or implementation is there to serve the customer. The goal is to make the project a success for them.

That business and its employees will live within that ERP and its connected programs every day, and they deserve to have a system that is successful based on their business.

Every business is different – it’s why at CADTALK, we have a customizable software that can fit different business requirements.

Every business also needs support – it’s why CADTALK is a low-code software that doesn’t require a separate developer, and why CADTALK assigns a dedicated customer success manager to every account.

That means that sometimes, the project won’t be broken down into small chunks.

“They may have integral systems that have dependencies that can’t be broken down,” Mould said. “It’s very much dependent on the client and their current landscape.”

“I think when both parties come together and identify the primary strategic objectives, then they formulate a plan that the customer actually starts to own. And that’s so important.”