Strategic Solutions & Services, LLC

Business Situation

A medium-sized manufacturing company that designs and produces electronic components to medical, defense and aerospace companies had experienced stagnant growth in recent years.  They wanted to remake the organization and update their business practices with the goal of increasing sales by 15% over the next five years. 

The Challenge

The biggest challenge for this company was that they had not updated their business practices in several decades, a liability which reduced their efficiency and increased their costs in all four of their manufacturing divisions.  Their IT systems needed a major upgrade but they also needed to understand and adopt current industry practices to successfully prepare the organization for the significant people, process and technology changes that were to come. 

While they had a successful business, the company’s success was limited by their reliance on business practices that were out of date, inefficient and costly.  We were asked to evaluate their operational processes and overall system landscape.  We then used that information to determine what changes they would need to make to achieve and support their desired growth.

The Outcome

Our approach was successful because it allowed the employees themselves to take the lead in enabling the company’s goal to enable rapid future growth. 

Because the employees were integral to creating the plan, they were bought in from the start, eager to adapt to the new culture and embrace the business and project goals.

Updating the business culture and leading the team through a detailed business process & IT assessment prepared the company for their successful ERP selection and implementation.          

The Approach

Step 1:

A business process and IT assessment was performed to fully understand business objectives and to evaluate the company’s ability to enable an aggressive growth strategy. 

The resulting recommendations were reviewed with the leadership team and a large number of business process stakeholders.  Ultimately, the assessment recommendations were supported and pursued.

Step 2:

To address the culture challenge and prepare the organization for the process and system changes, we assembled a 21-member cross-functional team that was made up of employees from every aspect of the business. 

The team received intense instruction on current industry practices related to material flow, work & information flow and ultimately the operational preparation that would need to occur prior to implementing an ERP solution.   

After successfully aligning the team around ERP concepts and a common business language, we lead them through a detailed analysis of their organization’s work & information flow, which identified 28 unique process improvement initiatives.