Usability of the new change order enhancements in an ERP system
Haldi, Tiia (2022)
Haldi, Tiia
2022
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202202202684
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202202202684
Tiivistelmä
The purpose of this project was to understand the implementation success of a multiyear ERP harmonization and enhancement project in a large international company. The company is working in the manufacturing field supplying large transportation products. The selected topic for study from the harmonization project was new specific categories in the ERP ordering system. The objective was to see if the implementation was successful by analyzing data to see, if the new categories were in use in the country units later frontlines.
The beneficiary of this thesis is the multinational company itself on a global and local level. The newly implemented order categories will help the company to understand volumes per category. This information will aid management in its yearly actions to support global and local business improvements.
The theoretical framework for the thesis project is change management. Prior to the implementation, frontlines had two additional category order materials available in the ERP system causing all special orders to be lumped into these buckets without availability to separate them as data at a global level. After the implementation, the number of categories was increased and therefore an understanding about which element to open in specific cases becomes critical to ensure the same method of material usage globally. Change management is the theoretical framework since it is the process facilitating the change in the countries, or if not done successfully, leading to a failure in implementation.
The research method used was a quantitative research method. The data were retrieved from the company ordering ERP system from the time the first country went alive. The data were checked and validated. Excluded from the data were countries where the implementation was never carried out. The valid data for countries in this study was over ten-thousand-line items of ERP ordering data. The research data were analyzed based on the order element name created for the ERP system. The element name itself reveals which frontline has created the element and to which category. Therefore, the data were reliable to analyze which frontlines were using the new materials and therefore successful in the change.
The key finding was that 38% of the frontlines had started to use the new categories in their local business with customers and create new elements into the ERP system. The remaining frontlines are inconclusive based on the data. Many of these remaining 34 frontlines went live to production with changes very recently only up to a week or month before this research data was taken from ERP system. Therefore, these 34 remaining frontlines not yet using the new categories is not concerning outcome at this point of time.
The recommendation arising from this research is to repeat the analysis in 6 months’ time to see how many countries then have opened and used the ERP elements created for them. Secondly, it would be very important to remind countries about the new categories in a global info call or training event.
The beneficiary of this thesis is the multinational company itself on a global and local level. The newly implemented order categories will help the company to understand volumes per category. This information will aid management in its yearly actions to support global and local business improvements.
The theoretical framework for the thesis project is change management. Prior to the implementation, frontlines had two additional category order materials available in the ERP system causing all special orders to be lumped into these buckets without availability to separate them as data at a global level. After the implementation, the number of categories was increased and therefore an understanding about which element to open in specific cases becomes critical to ensure the same method of material usage globally. Change management is the theoretical framework since it is the process facilitating the change in the countries, or if not done successfully, leading to a failure in implementation.
The research method used was a quantitative research method. The data were retrieved from the company ordering ERP system from the time the first country went alive. The data were checked and validated. Excluded from the data were countries where the implementation was never carried out. The valid data for countries in this study was over ten-thousand-line items of ERP ordering data. The research data were analyzed based on the order element name created for the ERP system. The element name itself reveals which frontline has created the element and to which category. Therefore, the data were reliable to analyze which frontlines were using the new materials and therefore successful in the change.
The key finding was that 38% of the frontlines had started to use the new categories in their local business with customers and create new elements into the ERP system. The remaining frontlines are inconclusive based on the data. Many of these remaining 34 frontlines went live to production with changes very recently only up to a week or month before this research data was taken from ERP system. Therefore, these 34 remaining frontlines not yet using the new categories is not concerning outcome at this point of time.
The recommendation arising from this research is to repeat the analysis in 6 months’ time to see how many countries then have opened and used the ERP elements created for them. Secondly, it would be very important to remind countries about the new categories in a global info call or training event.