2 posts tagged “business analyst quality system”

An important part of any ERP implementation project is establishing the ‘As-is’ business processes. This allows an understanding of the way the business runs, documenting the inputs and outputs, and then seeing how it maps to the new ERP system. There is also an opportunity to see if the business process could be done in a better way. Once the new way is designed and documented we have the ‘To-be’ business process.

Any business that has selected an ERP system, such as Microsoft Dynamics AX 2009, will soon realise that there is the opportunity to cut out swathes of paperwork and hours of filing. At first this will make a lot of people nervous as they will not have access to their trusty filing system. For a while they will feel lost when they realise that they cannot go though manual, multi-indexed, paper based records. So it’s important that training for the new system is not only about functionality but also about navigation. Ensure that you give users comfort by showing them where they can find the electronic equivalent of the paperwork they file manually now.

Mapping the ‘As-is’ business process may also reveal some redundancy in the current way of doing things. I recall once taking a business through a particular process that involved 28 different pieces of paper that referenced each other and required multi-part forms and transfer, by handwriting, of information between the forms. Ultimately the forms resided in 22 different filing systems in binders and cabinets. After 2 days I asked the question; "Typically, how often do you refer back to these records in a year?". After a long pause the reply was "I can’t actually remember the last time we did". A further question "What do you do with all this paperwork after 6 months?" (because the daily output was phenomenal and it was clear it wasn’t in the office we were in). This time a rapid reply, "We destroy it". Then, from me "Why are you doing it then?". "Because… ". Silence.

In my early days of working for a large government sponsored agency I learnt a really valuable lesson about that particular business and about business in general. It was this: if a business process, upon investigation, doesn’t seem to make sense and you are sure that you have got all the information related to it from all the parties involved, then it is probably true that it doesn’t make sense.

The other thing to realise is that the people who are intimately involved with doing what they are doing won’t realise it doesn’t make sense or will even defend vigorously what they are doing because they probably designed it.

My first realisation of these facts happened when I joined a business and was due to replace someone who was moving to another department. As with all new jobs the first week is a whirlwind of meeting new colleagues whose name you forget almost immediately, tour of the facilities (10 of 100 different sites in this case) and getting to grips with the tasks for your role.

The second week, of the two week handover, was my most fraught. This was the reason why: my most important job was to collate and publish to the board on a monthly basis the order intake figures, the value of the deliveries made and the forward order book.

The person whom I was replacing sat down with me and started to explain how this was done and how it was really a full time job and how that she had insisted that really they should have replaced her with two people rather than just me. She then proceeded to take me through the process.
Order intake: when a customer phoned up to take an order a form had to be filled out and then faxed to the customer to confirm it. On receipt of the fax back the value would be written in a big red ledger called the day book. The order would then be entered into the computer system – this was a large legacy system.

Deliveries: every time a delivery was made the warehouse staff had to fill in a form listing what was delivered and then fax it over to my new colleague. She would enter this in another big red ledger. Also she would go the computer system and then retrieve the price of the goods and put this in the ledger too.

Order book: At the end of each month she would take all the entries in the red ledgers and add them up. Then she would try and work out which orders had come in and gone out in the same month and finally what was left over was the order book. This was always the most difficult part and always ensured that copious amounts of overtime were worked in pursuit of the answer.

I sat and listened and followed the process. And I began to panic. Because it wasn’t being explained very well and it didn’t seem to make any sense to me I was worrying that I was going to blow it in the first month of the job, Imagine the board waiting for me to complete their reporting and me up to my ears in big red ledgers not being able to deliver the figures.
So I asked a question. Why if you are putting sales orders onto your computer system and the despatch department are using the system to produce delivery notes are you bothering to write this all down in the big red ledgers?

And the response that I received was one I have heard many times since: “Because we have always done it this way – and the bosses will be very annoyed if we don’t follow procedures. We’re got a quality system you know.”

“But, if you are typing all this in the computer system then it will take a couple of hours to knock up a report that will give us the information we want”. I replied.

And unfortunately she just couldn’t see it. She spent the next couple of days continuing to explain to me how it should be done. Then she spent a day telling me the history of why it should be done this way. The most fascinating fact was that the big red ledgers pre-dated the computer system, and I believe computers in general, by about 20 years. No one had ever thought to re-examine the process and determine whether it made sense any more.

I went quiet and I listened. I then watched as she went though her month end process for the final time.

The following Monday I contacted the computer department. I gave them a template of the report I wanted and the following day the report arrived.

The day after that I published the order intake, deliveries made for the previous day and the order book. The day after that I did it again. And so on. General astonishment. Call from the MD – “Are these figures correct?”, “How are you doing this?” and “We were told this couldn’t be done”.
Then I started worrying. I had just turned a full time job into a job that would take 10 minutes a day (if I didn’t rush).

I needed have been concerned – I was tasked with reviewing all the business processes within the company. And that’s how I started as a Business Analyst. And it’s also why I reached the conclusion that if I didn’t think something made sense when I was in possession of all the facts and I’d examined it closely then it probably didn’t make sense. It still a rule I apply today.