|
The biller of Shanghai PL Technologies Co., Ltd. received, as usual, a PO after the approval of the sales department. It was a PO of a 10,000 Spurlin trash bins this time. Though a small trash bin, it involved more than ten types of raw materials and accessories. In the past, the biller had to issue over ten bills accordingly, and handed them over to the related personnel for picking and production in the subsequent steps. Now, all he needed to do was to input one list in the Kingdee K/3 system that the company implemented successfully and all bills issuing work would be done with a snap. The system hacks the workload, drives up the work efficiency, and refines the work accuracy.
Shanghai PL Technologies is a typical enterprise in the manufacture industry. The Kingdee K/3 system assists the enterprise maximally to cut repeated work and improve work efficiency. It also solves the problem of the increasing productivity requirement in the context of gradually enlarged production scale. In the coming year, the enterprise will put a production base of a larger scale into operation in Songjiang, Shanghai. At that time, it will truly experience the fresh vitality brought about by the Kingdee K/3 system.
Kingdee K/3: Winner Who Survived Repeated Tests
Shanghai PL Technologies Co., Ltd. is a professional manufacturer of high-class bathroom furnishings and sanitary products invested and directly managed by PL Technologies, Inc., U.S.A. Founded in 1993, Shanghai PL Technologies currently has a wide product portfolio, including high-end acrylic massage bathtub series, common bathtub series, multi-person big bathtub, and shower room and steam room series. The company also manufactures swimming pool and water processing system, FRP, sauna series products. It applies the Build To Order production mode, and the products are exported to Europe, North America, and Japan. The requirements on production quality and delivery date are strict.
As it grows, Shanghai PL Technologies feels more intensely about the bottleneck directly caused by the expansion of the enterprise. In particular, the most direct factor of the bottleneck that impacts further growth is the tedious repeated work of inventory management and in the process. Though the main materials are not diverse (chemical materials for plastic products), the items of additives and accessories are many. A large number of additives are calculated in the unit of gram. Different unit weights of an additive will lead to different end products.
An implementer of Kingdee told the reporter, "High requirements of the procedure and diverse products are the biggest characteristics of Shanghai PL Technologies, compared with other enterprises in the manufacture industry." As a result, the enterprise needs to have a clear idea of the inventory so that procurement and production can be quickly implemented according to the POs. Unfortunately, it was a weak link in the work process of Shanghai PL Technologies. Usually the procurement department could not accurately know about the inventory and production situations of the company. Consequently, the objective of enterprise procurement operation and management that the continuity of production should be guaranteed with the minimum procurement cost and the minimum inventory could hardly be achieved.
Due to the large number of accessories necessary for the manufacture of the products of Shanghai PL Technologies, the workload of the billers was multiplied. It hampered the development of the company. Take the manufacture of bathtub for example. In the past when manual accounting was adopted, over a hundred bills should be made. The large amount of repeated work directly dragged down the productivity.
Shanghai PL Technologies started to seek a cure for the pain when it felt solidly about the production bottleneck. A director of the senior management of the enterprise was rational with ERP, "Its unrealistic the ERP application is 100% fit in with the reality of the enterprise. We hope to remove the key problems. On that basis, continuous adjustment and change will be made in the long term after-sales services till it achieves the optimum."
The brand name of Shanghai PL Technologies, product performance and service were singled out as the three standards of selecting the ERP. Shanghai PL Technologies believes that, compared with other products in the market, the product of Kingdee was relatively mature. It got to know from some customers that the services and management of Kingdee were well-planned and in good order. Based on all factors afore-mentioned, Kingdee became the winner after careful investigation and screening.
Shanghai PL Technologies: Difficulty Removed and Step-by-Step Implementation
In addition to the reasonable settings of the software and the strong implementation capability of the software supplier, the implementation of ERP posed high requirements on the hardware facilities of the enterprise. The enterprise needed to pay dearly with a large amount of human and physical resources. In that regard, the senior management of Shanghai PL Technologies had a careful thinking and weighing. Shanghai PL Technologies was but small manufacture enterprise after all. Currently its production tasks are time pressing. There is a degree of risk to incorporate the ERP system at this moment. In addition, the investment in hardware facilities was substantive, and its return was not completely clear. In the perspective of long-term development of the enterprise, only the improvement of production operation and management model could bring new profit increase points to the enterprise and truly uplift the comprehensive competitiveness of the enterprise. For this reason ERP became an inevitable move. In the end, the Fujitsu dual-CPU servers, 700M hard disks, and IBM computers were all moved into the factory. The hardware facilities are still advanced for the Shanghai PL Technologies today. The high concern of the senior management of the enterprise about the issue was doubtless. Understandably, their expectation was equally high.
The second problem that occurred during the implementation of the ERP was the different levels of the quality of the personnel. Before, the requirements on the employees started from production. Those who could operate the equipment properly and produced quality products were qualified employees. Now they have to be computer literate and know about the related financial software and management software. As the variety of the materials of Shanghai PL Technologies was large, the database to be established was huge. Such a huge task became even more difficult in the hands of the unskillful personnel. However, the employees were hard working and tolerable. They worked overtime to complete the initialization of the raw materials with the assistance of the Kingdee implementation consultants.
The previous work habits and work concepts were challenged. "For example, in the past, the sales personnel completed their work after they handed over the POs to the related departments for review and approval. Now the K/3 system was implemented. After the sales link of the process, the sales personnel still have to cooperate with the biller and procurement links in supplying data necessary. No doubt the workload of the sales personnel is increased. It requires the cooperation of the sales personnel." In the implementation of the ERP, a large amount of data for the link comes from the previous link. The work process functions as an integrated whole. The cooperation of the links becomes especially important. The lack of cooperation among employees is a common problem encountered in the implementation of the ERP in many enterprises. Facing such a thorny problem, Shanghai PL Technologies determined to remove it. According to a source of Shanghai PL Technologies, "Some people quit and some others got relocated due to the implementation of this project."
As many tasks could not be done overnight, the Kingdee implementation consultants proposed a step-by-step implementation scheme. In 2001, the financial part of the system, including the G/L, fixed assets, salary, AR/AP, and advanced management modules, should be implemented. From January to June of 2002, the procurement, sales, and inventory supply chain, planning, and cost accounting parts should be implemented. After discussion with Shanghai PL Technologies, the full implementation of the system was divided into two phases, with some buffer time between the two phases. "During the implementation of the financial part, the customer requires that all 3,000 invoices that have not been written off be all input in the AR/AP module initialization link. For that reason, the AR/AP invoice initialization took a relatively long time (about three weeks). It took a longer time than scheduled. The implementation of other modules was done as planned," introduced a Kingdee implementer. With the joint efforts of both Shanghai PL Technologies and Kingdee, the project was successfully completed in June 2002.
Assisting the Enterprise to Launch Information-Based Management
Currently the area of over ten mu (1/15 of a hectare) cannot fully accommodate the quickly expanding Shanghai PL Technologies. Soon Shanghai PL Technologies will activate a larger new factory in Songjiang, Shanghai. On the road of growth, Kingdee is doubtlessly a helpful assistant of Shanghai PL Technologies. Most noticeably, after the implementation of the K/3 system by Kingdee, the quality of the personnel of Shanghai PL Technologies was greatly improved. A team of key employees was trained during the entire implementation process. The procurement plan was scientifically improved, and the normal production was guaranteed.
At the same time, concerning inventory management, instant query of the inventory was adopted to achieve real-time monitoring of the inventory information. Consequently, the accuracy and timeliness of the inventory data was ensured. Inventory management helped Shanghai PL Technologies to reasonably control the inventory, speed up capital circulation, and strictly perform production picking based on quota. The production cost was lowered, and the reasonable configuration of the enterprise resources was basically achieved. The management of finished products clearly reflects the structure and quality status of the finished product inventory. With the data mentioned, the actual status of the inventory can be analyzed and adjusted to achieve a reasonable balance.
Concerning procurement, the functions of the system enable the enterprise to utilize the limited human resources to focus on the key points and yield efficient management. The effective control of the budget leads to the focused management of procurement in the actual procurement operation. Meanwhile, resource survey and supplier certification can guarantee the supply based on priority, which reduced the procurement cost. The procurement department changed the confusing situation in the past. Instead, it is able to get informed of the inventory and production status in time. The work of the department is in order. Finally, the objective of enterprise procurement operation and management that the continuity of production should be guaranteed with the minimum procurement cost and the minimum inventory is achieved.
Concerning the sales link, the work of different links has been integrated into one process. The departments are actively supporting the sales business by quickly handling the customer POs and delivery. The sales personnel can quickly report the market demands through customer files and collection of market information. The leadership of Shanghai PL Technologies can have a full and clear picture of the PO implementation of the company through the Kingdee K/3 PO management module, and compile the sales plan and delivery plan according to the contracts signed.
As pointed out by the motto of Kingdee, "Enable Your Success", the Kingdee K/3 system helped Shanghai PL Technologies to solve the problems in production and management and make a successful step ahead towards information-based management. |
You Are Here: