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Industry 4.0

Humanity has constantly been finding new ways to increase & improve productivity. The progress that started with the invention of the wheel millennia ago is still ongoing & can clearly be seen in the improvements made by our species in the field of production. Every time we have a technological breakthrough, our society undergoes an “industrial revolution”.

An industrial revolution can be defined as the implementation of a breakthrough technology, over a period of time which results in increased productivity. In the past, industrial revolutions have been associated with both positive and negative effects on the socio-economic conditions of the society, though in the longer run, these revolutions have had more positive than negative effects. (Why, how, well that topic is out of our scope at the moment, but I may choose to post a video on this sometime in the future).

Some background

Historically we have had 3 industrial revolutions that have had an enormous impact on humanity.

First Industrial Revolution: Transition from manpower of mechanical power with the advent of steam and water power.

The Second Industrial Revolution: This era was marked with a huge increase in the reach of railways and the implementation of the telegraph. Industry was extensively electrified and the first production lines began to take shape.

The Third Industrial Revolution: This era is widely accepted to have started post the second great war. Also called the digital revolution, this era has seen increased use of computers in the production arena (along with other facets of human life). Sophisticated software, machine learning, Big data and Artificial Intelligence have brought about a rapid change in the way we engage in production and other allied production related activities.

These is where are currently, right at the cusp of the 3rd and the 4rth revolution. 

Industry 4.0 aka 4rth Industrial Revolution 

Industry 4.0 or the 4th Industrial Revolution focuses on computers and computer derived automated systems working together with robotic systems while being governed by sophisticated machine learning algorithms. All this with minimal human input.

Industry 4.0 is paving the way to smart factories of the future. Smart factories where all physical processes are monitored and managed by fully automated, decision capable, decentralized computerized systems and information will be shared in real-time over IoT (internet of things).

For any plant to be considered “Industry 4.0”, it must check the following:

  • Interoperability: Full duplex communication between individual components (including organic components eg, Human)
  • Information Contextualization: Add context to the information via the digital mapping of the physical premise of the location.
  • Decision/Execution assistance: The system should enable human operators to take complex decisions. Also, the system should have provisions to automate processes that may be hazardous to humans.
  • Decision Making: Systems must be capable of decision making, this is necessary if they are to be autonomous.

Caveat emptor

Apart from the massive advantages Industry 4.0 brings with it, there are certain caveats that one must be aware of as they are unique to it.

  • Data security is a huge part of the entire industry 4.0 endeavor. With so many interconnected components, zero day vulnerabilities are something that just cannot be ignored. Remember Mirai botnet? 
  • Industry 4.0 is still in the early adopter phase of the bell curve. The costs are high, and the level of reliability/robustness needed are still in the difficult to maintain area. 
  • Like every other industrial revolution, this too will bring (already visible) loss of “contemporary jobs”. This is probably the most contentious and divisive effect of Industry 4.0 and as such deserves a post on its own.

 Closing thoughts

The potential advantages of industry 4.0 far outweigh the socioeconomic challenges that it is associated with it. In a world where economies are going increasingly global, it has the potential to revolutionize the way consumers across are satiated.

Above all, so many of our future generations will be freed to pursue and discover new professions and opportunities that we currently don’t even have any clue about.

Marketing Plug

We are a boutique and lithe information technology advisory company based out of Dubai with a core focus and expertise in matching businesses to the right solution to get them the 360 degree field of view of their business. Want to know more? Cool, just drop us a line and it’s that easy 🙂

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Sage X3; review

What is Sage X3

Sage X3, formerly known as Sage Business Cloud Enterprise Management, is an ERP software suite by the award winning, UK headquartered, Sage PLC. Sage X3 is a top tier business management suite for companies and includes integrated functionality for financial management, sales, customer service, distribution, inventory, and manufacturing, and business intelligence. 

Who is it most suited for?

Extensively configurable, Sage X3 can be molded to fit user roles and organizational preferences. The system is built around the core features of visual processes, automation, alerts, document management, quick communication tools. Sage X3 is most suitable for organizations with an international presence as it is designed to support multiple languages, currencies, taxation and legislation

Main Features (but not limited to)

  • Accounting
    • Standard accounting
    • Advanced Revenue Recognition
    • Currency management
    • Tax Management
    • Multi-company Consolidation
    • Inter-company accounting

  • Business Intelligence
    • Real time visibility
    • Built-in reporting tools
    • Customizable reports
    • Real time dashboards
    • Key Performance Indicators
    • Business Alerts

  • Sales & Customer service
    • Billing
    • E-Commerce
    • Order Management
    • Multiple Pricing strategies
    • Customer Relationship Management
    • Order Shipping
    • Service Level Agreement Management

  • Manufacturing & Production
    • Complex Bill of Materials
    • Process Management
    • Regulatory Compliance
    • Job Costing
    • Work In Progress and routing
    • Work Orders
    • Material Requirement Planning
    • Production Scheduling
    • Quality Control

  • Warehouse & Fulfillment
    • Multi-site Inventory Management
    • Complex Distribution
    • Scanning and Barcoding
    • Serialization
    • Lot Tracking
    • Shipping Automation
    • Stock Level Alerts

  • Procurement & Planning
    • Purchase Order Management
    • Approvals
    • Requisitions
    • Budgeting
    • Planning
    • Demand Management
    • Forecasting

What we think of it

Sage X3 is deeply configurable which directly means that Sage X3 is able to provide a tight fit to the needs of the business. Another major plus point for Sage X3 is that the user experience while interacting with the system is positive as the user interface is breezy and smooth. We have found that manufacturing-centric customers are particularly more leaning towards recommending Sage X3 to other businesses, unsurprisingly as Sage X3 does have manufacturing at the heart of it.

We should also account for the features that Sage X3 comes with out of the box. This proves to be especially advantageous for businesses as it tends to be more complete solution, reducing the need for third party integrations.

Over all, we find Sage X3 to be a reliable and robust solution for businesses that are looking for more than a basic accounting suite.

We rate Sage X3 a solid 4.5/5

We are a boutique and lithe information technology advisory company based out of Dubai with a core focus and expertise in matching businesses to the right solution to get them the 360 degree field of view of their business. Want to know more? Cool, just drop us a line and it’s that easy 🙂 

 

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What is this 360 degree view that everyone keeps talking about?

360 degree view, this term is thrown around a lot in the world of enterprise solutions, but what does it actually mean? 

Technically, 360 degrees view = all round unhindered view/vision

This begs the question, how is this applicable to business? Good question, glad you asked, allow me to answer.

360 degree business view, phrase when used in the business, refers to the availability of reliable & empirical data points to enable the decision maker/makers to make as informed decisions as possible.

Time before the “bigger picture”

It has been now a considerable amount of time since businesses have embraced information technology. These soft- ware and hardware solutions together have helped tremendously in the day to operations enabling businesses to access higher levels of profitability. 

All business solutions invariably work on real world information which, as it enters the system, becomes a data point. Historically, we have been interacting with these data points in order to form our perception of the business and attempting to take the best possible decisions. This being said, our foresight and decision making tools are limited by the depth of data points at hand.

Enter the bigger picture, a.k.a “Big Data”

Merriam Webster dictionary defines big data as:

“an accumulation of data that is too large and complex for processing by traditional database management tools”

More powerful computing devices, advancement in database platforms and the economical accessibility of powerful computing platforms in the form of cloud computing has dramatically reduced the computing power barrier and given rise to big data. Needless to day, the advent of big data in the last decade has forever changed the way we have interacted with information and the way we interact with it.

Businesses and organizations are increasingly leveraging on cutting edge business solutions like Sage X3 and Sage 300 to generate acute data and thanks to the advance data management technology coupled with powerful computing platforms to achieve:

  1. Deep, insightful and long range decision making
  2. Agile supply chain management 
  3. Acute forecasting demand, supplies
  4. Well rounded customer information
  5. Temporal and spatial information about operations
  6. Streamlined manufacturing
  7. Intelligent inventory control

Okay, no that we have grips on this big data, whats next

Agile like a Cheetah or Gazelle, how ever you like it

The more foresight you have the more in tune you are to the events that have higher probability of occurring. This kind of information is critical in order to react to events which have the potential to disrupt the daily operations of business. For example take any manufacturing process, temporal and spatial information helps you to have all the necessary BOM items in stock to ramp up the production either at one location or decide to balance the demand from another production area. The point here is simple, forewarned is forearmed.

Guessing begone

Global competition means that all processes of a business have efficiency as their primary mandate. 360 degree view enables decision makers to design and deploy processes that use resources optimally, reduce waste as much as possible and increase profitability wherever possible. Or simply put, embrace the lean ideology. More over this deep view of business enables the continuous improvement of processes as data accumulation just improves pattern identification.

Recap

A 360 degree field of view in the sense of business makes you quick on your feet and more proactive (rather than reactive). At the end of the day in order to be that “out of the box” thinking organization, its supremely important to reduce fragmentation of systems, data and response time to events. New age business solutions like CRM, ERP and Business Intelligence tools are developed precisely for this, to help you gain far and wide 360 degree view of your business environment.

This is where Evomatiq Business Solutions LLC comes into the picture. We are a boutique and lithe information technology advisory company based out of Dubai with a core focus and expertise in matching businesses to the right solution to get them the 360 degree field of view of their business. Want to know more? Cool, just drop us a line and it’s that easy 🙂

 

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This is how ERP pricing works. Minimal tech jargon, promise.

In the 21st Century, Enterprise Resource Planning (more affectionately ERP) soft-wares have become central to the effective management of businesses of all sizes. ERPs are a natural evolution of basic accounting soft-wares from 1987 (remember TurboCash) which in-turn had many humble roots in Lotus 123 launched in the mid-1980s. 

What marks ERPs from basic accounting suites is the sheer scale of ERPs. Where accounting software handles only the accounting aspect of the organization, ERPs, on the other hand, take care of all the other activities and processes in the organization. The following are some of the processes that are handled by your typical ERP:

  • Financials Management
  • Inventory Management
  • Human Resources & Payroll
  • Customer Relationship Management
  • Sales Management
  • Manufacturing & Supply Chain Management

All this control and efficiency does come with a price tag, this piece aims at breaking down the pricing structures (in general). ERP costs can be broadly broken down into:

  • License Costs
    • Module Licence
    • User License
  • Implementation Cost
    • Requirement gathering
    • Use Cases
    • Configuration
    • Customizations
    • Change Requests
    • Training
  • Annual Maintenance & Support
    • Support (Can have different models)
    • Future Updates

Before we hit them one-by-one, here are a few terms that you should be aware of:

  • Principal: The developer of the ERP for eg, Sage, Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, etc.
  • Channel Partner (Vendor): Principals rarely work directly with the customer (unless the account is huge like that of the major manufacturer or an airline, etc). The products are sold by vendors called channel partners. 
  • Name User License: License tied to the name/ID of a user, ie 5 Name users license means that the ERP will have 5 users with predefined roles.
  • Concurrent User License: License that is tied to a maximum number of people who can use the system at any given point of time. For eg, 5 concurrent user license means that an ERP can as many numbers of registered users in the system, but at any point of time, only 5 will be able to log into the system, other users can log in once one/any of the 5 logs off. 
  • Module License: License cost for that particular module. 

License Costs

ERPs generally have 2 license aspects, 1 for the modules and the other for users. The cost for the licenses will vary from product to product. Concurrent user licenses, in general, are more desirable as they come with flexibility and for modules, the focus has to be to avoid the bells and whistles and stick to modules that are needed, not wants. Overall the license costs will be 50% of the entire ERP implementation.

Implementation Costs

Implementation is generally carried out, almost always, by a channel partner (vendor). Your organization will work with the vendor team from start to finish. We have covered the entire process of ERP implementation in detail, you can read it here or view the video here. 

Broadly implementation covers:

  • Requirement gathering: Series of interaction between the implementation team and your team to uncover and categorize the requirements.
  • Use Cases generation: General use scenarios based on the discovered requirements.
  • Configuration & Customisations: Setup and development of specific features for meeting the required specifications. It should be noted no ERP product will meet all your business needs right out of the box as each business processes are unique.
  • Change Requests: It is normal for requirements to evolve during the implementation process. Depending on your equation with our implementation partner these change requests may be chargeable.
  • Training: Training for your staff in the freshly deployed ERP system.

Annual Maintenance and support

The last but crucial aspect of ERP costing. Post-deployment the implementation is responsible for providing support for:

  • Technical support
    • Onsite
    • Remote
    • Telephonic
  • Staff Training for new induction or refresher courses for the staff.

The industry rule of thumb is 20% of the license cost but depending on the service level agreement between you and your implementation partner, the cost and services offered will vary. 

Conclusion

License costs, costs for implementation and your support requirements are the variables that decide the final cost of the implementation of a new cutting edge ERP. It should be noted that I have left out indirect costs such as hardware (server/local LAN infrastructure) and/or the need to hire specialist staff to manage certain new job openings that may open up with the deployment. 

If you like we have a much more detailed post and video about how you should proceed with ERP implementation. You can see the video from this link.

That being said, an experienced and accomplished implementation partner is crucial successful ERP implementation.

Evomatiq Business Solutions LLC is a boutique software solutions advisory based out of Dubai, UAE. Evomatiq excels in helping businesses understand the emergent requirements and match them with long term and scalable business solutions.

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Deep Work: The Art of Attaining the flow

Deep work is a term used by Cal Newport in his book “Deep Work: Rules for focused success in a distracted world”

Deep work is a state of mind characterized by intense focus and concentration.

In this book, Cal Newport tells the tales of accomplished individuals who were/are famous for going into seclusion to produce phenomenal work. For example, Bill Gates is famous for taking 1 week off every year. He calls it the thinking week, dedicated to forming new ideas and strategies. Another famous person was Sigmund Freud, who used to go into prolonged periods of isolation to produce groundbreaking work.

Why deep work?

Good question. I am glad you asked. Let me try to answer.

Today in the 21st-century gadgets of all kinds have been embedded deep in our lives. Social media has made it easy to be hyper-aware of everything that happens around us (don’t even get me started on the privacy concern that these things bring with them, that demands a separate post). People today find themselves living their lives from one screen to another and with so many devices and apps fighting for attention, it is becoming indeed an uphill task to focus and concentrate for longer periods of time. I blame this fragmentation of focus for typos now making regular appearances on the pages of publications throughout the media-sphere.

Leaving typos aside, any work that one desires to be called “high-caliber” has to be of quality and quality work can only come when the mind is focused. Deep work can help you erode seemingly tough problems and produce quality work. Now that you know about the reasons for and benefits of Deep work, the next logical question then becomes;

How to go about getting into Deep Work?

These steps according to Cal Newport are potent ways to enter the state of the flow

Schedule time for productive work

Every day, consciously define chunks of time for performing deep work. Consider the following methods to enter deep work.

  • The Hermit Approach: This strategy mandates sizable chunks of time, weeks, months, years (extreme) off for the mission at hand. Consider this if you are a mad scientist trying to work on a world-changing theory, an author if you are working on a majestic piece of literature or if you are a musician who is trying to write that awesome metal ballad.
  • Bi-modal approach: This approach mandates a couple of days in a week dedicated to deep work
  • Rhythmic Approach: This approach mandates deep work for a few hours every day.

We are all different after all and these approaches as such may not work for you, But I am sure that some combination of these will definitely do the trick.

Inculcate Mental Training

“The mind is not a vessel to be filled, but a fire to be kindled.”

― Plutarch

By now we all know that mental focus requires discipline. One exercise you can do is sit down, close your eyes and count your breaths till 100. Every time your mind wanders away, bring it back and focus only the movement of your diaphragm.

If you find this too brings, exercise delayed gratification in your day to day activities, don’t skip ads, avoid flipping your cell phone if you feel bored. Small things add up to help you hone your focusing skills

Social Media Detox

Get off of social media channels. Believe me, you’d have taken this decision for the best. Apart from making us anxious, social media apps are constantly trying to encroach on the plane of focus, after all, that’s their entire business model.

This detox will clear your mind of static, arbitrary information making way for more bandwidth that you can utilize for fruitful work.

Can Do, Should Do, Must Do

Divide your daily tasks in this category. Where can do are things of least importance, Should do of medium importance and Must do of the highest importance?

Start your day with the highest priority, at your from first. Low productivity jobs can be in the second half of the day. The main focus here is to get on the most important work on your list with the highest level possible energy that you can muster.

You will fail

These steps may look daunting and you may invariably fail at them in the beginning and that’s okay. The key here is persistence.

You have habits that were built over time, they won’t break easily. As long as you seek more from yourself and keep at it you’ll make progress.

All the best

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Inventory Management Vs Warehouse Management

In today’s fast-paced globally connected markets material and cargo move across locations and boundaries all the time. Global markets also mean that companies have to a tight ship in terms of operations to be competitive and profitable. Supply chain management deals in the processes, systems, and protocols that enable companies with automation with logistics.

In this landscape of enterprise software resources, two terms are thrown around a lot ie, inventory management (IM) and warehouse management (WM).

IM and WM are similar concepts in the space of materials management but have vastly different applications. This post discusses the different aspects of IM and WM that set them apart. This post will help you ascertain which of these systems are more suited for your organization.

Inventory Management

Inventory management encompasses elements of demand forecasting, inventory control, and elements of reverse logistics (reuse of products and materials).IMs traditionally don’t concern themselves with the functional hardware,machinery as they deal more with data such as information about SKU availability at a particular location, the financial value of the inventory along with details metrics that give critical information to management about profitability, like batch wise margins, projected demands, supplier details, auto-reordering, etc. IM is more to do with the high-level, operational/financial overview. Think of an IM as a top-level view of materials that you hold. Also, it’s important to note that IMs almost always deal with finished goods. Finished goods are sale ready goods that have crossed the process of manufacturing.

IMs job has more to do with the availability of the right amount of stock at the right place at the right time. IM software gives businesses the flexibility to use one of many delivery strategies like Lean manufacturing, ABC stocking Dropshipping and cross-docking. As much as I’d like to deliberate on these, these require their own posts and that is what we will do.

Warehouse Management

Warehouse Management (WM) as a system is all about the storage of stock. WM cover the storage of materials from all phases of the production cycle, this probably is one of the most glaring differences between an IM system and a WM system. WM deals with items such as:

  • Ready Components: Items used for the manufacture of the final finished product.
  • Raw materials: Unfinished components what will be processed to become the final product.
  • Under process material: Stuff that is under various phases of production towards becoming the final finished products.
  • Products: (Common with IMs) these are items that have gone through all phases of production and are now sales-ready.

From the above, it is clear that warehouses play an integral role in all aspects of the manufacturing cycle. Keeping the operational criticality in mind, WMs have to have complete and precise control on what is in the warehouse, what happens to it and the time frame within which it happens.

Where an IMs keep track of what item is in which location, the WMs goes into the details of not only what item is in which location but also where it is physically inside the warehouse precisely. Having all this information means that item retrievals are optimally timed. You can well imagine from here on how critical this is for lean processes. Owing to special temporal and spatial attribute to their performance, WMs keep track of the layout (mostly tightly packed aisles) and the equipment (like forklifts/crane) that operate inside a warehouse to facilitate accessibility to stored items.

So which of these two systems is the right fit for your organization?

Simply put, Inventory systems on their own are enough for small/medium enterprises, ie for businesses that do not have a huge SKU list and are limited to local delivery operations. Warehouse management system, on the other hand, are more complex in nature due to the features and capabilities that come with it and hence fit organizations with large SKUs and multi-located operations.

Selecting a software suite for your organization is a process that requires due diligence and proper planning. It is like a coordinated dance that has to be choreographed keeping in mind the various other departments involved, other systems deployed in the organization and the end goals that are being targeted.

Evomatiq Business Solutions LLC is a boutique software solutions advisory based out of Dubai, UAE. Evomatiq excels in helping businesses understand the emergent requirements and match them with long term and scalable solutions.

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Improve your CRM adoption rate

This is a question which occupies a lot of bandwidth for the management after a CRM app has been deployed company-wide, and the worry is not completely unfounded too, CRMs carry a whopping, 63% failure in adoption rate!

So you ask, first the fight to get the CRM deployed after the entire procedure of selection of the right CRM product and then getting the right implementation partner on board and even after all this the success rate is less than 50%, why even have a CRM in the first place?

The answer is simple, its a fact that organizations with proper adoption of CRM outperform those without a CRM by a ginormous margin.

Surprising as it is, that a platform as productive as a CRM can have such a high rate of failure, this situation of despair can be avoided altogether.

The following are some of the most virulent reasons that are most often at the core of abysmally low CRM adoption:

  • Super low adoption rate by users
  • Absence of internal power user committee to lay down, oversee and steer the adoption process
  • Underwhelming CRM adoption mandate by the upper echelon of the management.

So you ask, how to go about boosting the CRM adoption at your organization?

“Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes; but no plans.”

― Peter F. Drucker

Just like everything else, there must be a conscious mandate and a plan in place to achieving the levels of adoption that are being targeted. Organizations must expand the focus of their looking glass and see more than just the temporal and budgetary aspect of the CRM implementation project.

It is absolutely important to understand right from the beginning that CRM adoption is a stand-alone project. The skill sets required to drive this project to success are different than the ones necessary for successful CRM implementation and deployment. Simply put, unless your system integration partners have dedicated team for managing CRM adoption, they may not be a fit for leading this project.

That being said, here are steps to ensure that the CRM at your organisation functions to its fullest extent.

Early Engagement

Know your users. The process of CRM implementation must account for the users who are to work on it. CRMs tend to change the way businesses processes are followed and change is something that humans don’t take to easily. This situation is best-taken care off by involving the users right from the beginning of the project. As a part of the CRM mandate, the users must be given clear and precise information on the value that the CRM is going to bring to them, the ways in which the pre CRM processes will be changed to take the CRM in the fold. The shock of embracing a new system can only be dampened by clear and concise information. Close cooperation with users creates a valuable feedback channel which results in the creation and implementation of processes that work for the users and not vice versa.

Power Users   

From within the ranks of user representing different departments, select a group of users based on roles and propensity towards technology. These users are to be drilled/trained more extensively compared to the general population. These power users are the hub around which you will build the wheel of solid CRM users. The power users work with the general users and help prepare processes and protocols which will be followed after the CRM implementation. These powers users are always available and are much more approachable internally to handle queries and questions.

Documentation

The cornerstone of CRM adoption is the CRM Adoption Manual. In simpler terms, this document contains all the processes handled and the steps to achieve each process along with do’s and don’ts associated with the process. This manual is a fall backreference which is readily available for all users. Proper documentation ensures continuity of information in the organization and as such must be kept updated with the CRM updates.

Proper Implementation

While all the above is being done to ensure proper CRM adoption, it is important to make sure that the implementation part is being done properly. Processes must be created to suit the CRM users and not the other way round. The system needs to work for the people and not the other way around. This point is directly connected with the point of “Early Engagement”. The CRM system must have clear navigation through the processes and should be forgiving for easy recovery from errors.

User Specific Training Sessions

Training and knowledge sharing sessions must be segregated as per departments addressing processes and modules specific to the department. The power users (selected earlier) will be of great use to ensure compliance and query resolution. Sessions should be concentrated at the beginning of the adoption and should gradually taper down was the adoption progresses. Once the adoption process has achieved its goal these training sessions can be arranged on request, or on induction and/or one a quarter.

Endnotes

CRM implementations don’t have to be tough and fraught with risks. If you follow these guidelines, you are well on your way for successful implementation and adoption of a CRM system at your organization.

If you want to know more of CRM systems or other enterprise software solutions get in touch with us.

Evomatiq Business solutions is a lithe and boutique enterprise software solutions based in Dubai. We are extreme proponents of service with accountability.  

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Project recovery & how to go about it

As a project manager, project recovery is one of the last things that you want to do. Unfortunately, it is sometimes pertinent and necessary to do. The “Project recovery” is associated with the process of getting an off-track delivery back under control and set it underway to successful completion.

 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not to fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

― Sun Tzu, The Art of War

 

Before we mull over the different approaches towards project recovery, it’s important to first understand the triggers which are the most usual suspects that throw the spanner into the gears.

Personal Personnel Issues

Conflict within the teams, lack of trust and clash of egos, these are the common factors that hinder effective communication. This is already tough if it happens within teams locally, imagine the havoc this phenomenon creates when it affects teams which are geographically distributed.

Inefficient communication

Lack of communication is perhaps the most rampant of triggers that successfully derail projects. Lack of communication can arise due to inefficient communication where the right information is not reaching the right person at the right time. Inefficient and ineffective communication creates a disconnect between the stakeholders and the team downstream resulting in delays and reworks.

Ineffective Planning

Simple. Clear. Concise. A project plant that does not live by these 3 words is doomed to fail from the beginning. The project plan must take into account the mission goals, objectives and major milestones in simple and clear form. All KRAs must have precise KPIs and the ad must be documented concisely for the team to understand and to refer to. If you consider the Agile ideology, the focus is on creating a minimum viable product with incremental improvements and value additions (in iterations) is a great way to eat the project in chunks and to improve the plan with each iteration.

Mis-scoping

A tight scope goes a long way towards ensuring that the teams know what needs to be done and what needs to be left out. The document sets out clear boundaries on cost, time and desired results for the team to refer to. The absence of a tight scope can result in work and energy on futile tasks.

Inconsistent Reporting

Proper reporting is at the core of an elite project manager. Reports need to be on time and must report the current status with clarity. Reports which are verbal, inaccessible and those which don’t have mission projections Vs Mission status can dangerously blow the mission off course.

Recovery Techniques

Now that we are a bit well versed with the triggers that can derail a project, here are some techniques that you can use to wrestle the project back on track.

Before we begin, it’s important to consider the possibility and the plausibility. What’s possible is not always plausible and what’s plausible is not always possible without extensive cost and time overruns. You must ask the benefits of trying to recovery over starting out afresh. If the answers you get are legit enough to warrant a recovery then read on.

Good old fashioned man power

Over time. Stout coffee and longer hours of keyboard mashing may be unavoidable to get the project timelines under control. As a project manager, if it does fall on you to steer your team through this, you must be prepared to do “controlled burns”, where your team does over time for a fixed period of time. Uncontrolled overtime saps energy and morale quickly and must be avoided at all costs.

Run parallel

Identify serial and parallel processes in your project. Try to tackle parts if not the whole of the serial processes parallel. Such partial overlapping will allow you to do more in lesser time.

Scope reductions & changes

Review the scope of the original project. It is not uncommon to discover over ambitions timelines at the core of derailed projects. If you do determine that the original scope was beefy, then you must rescope the project and reduce the scope wherever necessary to fit the goals. The new scope statement is holy and must not be altered or changed. As a project manager, it’s your duty to say no to changes in scope. A project that doesn’t have the scope in complete lockdown will inevitably fail. Iterative delivery is one of the techniques that you can utilise to manage a dynamic scope.

Outsource

As someone responsible for project recovery, you must be intelligent enough to recognise when you need help and level headed enough to seek that help. Outsourcing can help immensely in project recovery scenarios as contractors bring with them independent objectivity and expertise which can be of immense help in getting the project back in order.

In our experience as a leading enterprise software service integrators in Dubai, we can tell you with complete surety that the only policy to avoid costly project derailments is proper planning and due diligence.

Projects are most vulnerable at the beginning when the scope is being set, reporting channels are being established and teams are being doped with information. With this understanding, we at Evomatiq Business Solutions use the best project management practices and project management platform in the industry to ensure smooth project deliveries.

Learn more about what we do, click here.  

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Just in Time; manufacturing the lean way

With increasing worldwide competition and option to source from far corners of the world manufacturing units today are under constant pressure to outperform the competition and to provide customers with superior service and products. The Darwinian rule of survival of the fittest comes into play and only those companies who successfully reduce costs while maintaining a high level of customer satisfaction survive.

Lean manufacturing is also known by its aliases of Just In Time (JIT) manufacturing and more famously as Toyota Production System (TPS) is a production ideology pioneered by Toyota. It’s interesting to learn that TPS was rechristened as Lean manufacturing only in the 90s when Toyota become the largest automobile manufacturer of the world. Toyota started to work on the JIT, at-least the earliest versions of it, in the 1930s. This was around the same time when Toyota was transitioning from textiles to automobiles. Fast Forward to today, Lean manufacturing is the most widely embraced manufacturing ideology in the world today.

Core tenants of the Lean Manufacturing

“Muda”; Waste minimization

“Muri”; Overburden

“Mura”; Uneven workloads

Muda; Japanese term for “futility; uselessness; wastefulness”

Muda or Waste can be surmised as the following 7 types:

  1. Transport: Moving products that don’t need moving
  2. Inventory: Unoptimised inventory where components of the finished product are not processed in time.
  3. Motion: Resources, both human and equipment, moving more than necessary to achieve processing.
  4. Waiting: In the queue for the next production step to happen.
  5. Overproduction: Demand disconnect leading to production more than the current demand
  6. Overprocessing: Unnecessary process steps due to poor design or logic
  7. Defects: The efforts related to work/rework due to a direct result of QA/QC activities.

Muri; Japanese word meaning “unreasonableness; impossible; beyond one’s power”

This waste comes into effect because of ineffective processes that give rise to rise to non-standardized work. Ineffective processes give rise to confusion and production clashes which have severe effects on the efficiency of the production line and adverse effects on the morale of the workforce.

Mura; Japanese word meaning “unevenness; irregularity; lack of uniformity; nonuniformity; inequality”

Lean manufacturing works best when all processes work in sync with the right “pull” from the right subprocess. This means the production workload is spread out evenly across all processes, as intended, assuring a smooth production line

Incentives to go the lean way

Lean manufacturing is the chosen way to go for the majority of manufacturers today because it has real and clear advantages for the organization

  1. Enhanced and effective customer service: Customers get what they want when they want it. Garner higher customer satisfaction and customer retention rates across your sales channels
  2. Clear/purposeful management structure: With the maximum emphasis on working with optimized resources efficiency, lean manufacturing gives rise to small yet elite management teams and specialized workforce.
  3. Less/waste: This comes as a no brainer, as the entire focus is on eliminating waste as much as possible. This saves you vital financial resources boosting your profitability.
  4. Superior Quality Finished Product: Focused optimization of all processes results in products with higher quality

The enterprise software sector too has grown substantially to support Lean Manufacturing. A robust software is one of the cornerstones towards successful execution of the lean manufacturing ideology.

Sage Enterprise Management and Sage 300 ERP are world-class ERP software which helps operate some of the world’s most advanced production lines across the globe. Get in touch with us to know more about how together, we can take your manufacturing process lean.

Evomatiq Business Solutions LLC is one of GCC’s leading enterprise software integrators. Our core focus is to provide exceptional service, especially post-sales technical customer service. Our specialty lies in matching business specific business needs to the right software. To know more about us and the services that we can provide for you, please contact us today.

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