Beyond Manufacturing: The Journey to Becoming a Lean Enterprise

Transcription

1 Beyond Manufacturing: The Journey to Becoming a Lean Enterprise by Merit Solutions 1

2 1. Introduction 3 Content 1.1 Metrics Rethink Tooling Office Processes 3 2. History of Lean Manufacturing 4 3. Lean Principles in the Front Office Analyze Office Processes Spreadsheets Paper Workflow 6 4. Improve Profitability 6 5. Lean Enhances Competitiveness Reduced inventory costs: Shorter production lead times: Faster order cycle times: Higher quality: More cost effective manufacturing: 8 6. Lean s Impact on Quality 6.1 Lean and Six Sigma Lean and Mistake Proofing Lean, Quality and Worker Autonomy Lean and Clean Workspace 9 7. The Lean Supply Chain Take it Slow Make it a Two-Way Street Partnership How to Hold a Kazein Event Gather a Team: Decide on the Processes to Tackle: Walk Through the Existing Process: Measure: Evaluate Ideas: Measure Changes: Repeat Getting Lean with ERP Lean and ERP in Production JIT and Backflushing Lean and ISO Certification Lean and Cost Accounting Lean and Business Intelligence Conclusion 15 About Merit Solutions 16 Additional Resources 16

3 1. Introduction When people first learn about lean, they become excited by its simplicity and the exceptional benefits it brings. They mistakenly believe that because the concepts of lean are so simple that implementing it in a company should be equally simple, but that is rarely the case. Becoming a lean organization is not a single step or even a finite undertaking such as a typical project. Lean is a process in and of itself. The assumption is that no process will ever reach an ideal state, so it must always undergo improvement, and this principle holds true for organizations as well as all the manufacturing and business processes within it. Adopting lean is as much a culture change as it is a process change, and as such, it must be carefully rolled out to ensure adoption. Lean can t be implemented from the bottom of the organization up because of the profound shifts in metrics and cost structures, nor can it be implemented top down because of the need for process knowledge and change. Adopting lean must be a journey that the entire organization takes as a unit. 1.1 Metrics Most organizations use a few key metrics to measure success, and these metrics often form the backbone of its performance measurement system. For example, production supervisors in traditional manufacturing environments have been measured based on efficiency and utilization. That meant that supervisors tried to keep equipment and jobs running as long as possible to improve utilization and to maximize efficiency, but the result might be production overruns and excess inventory. Unless the production supervisor s metrics are changed to reflect lean values, the supervisor s goals will be at odds with the organization s objective, and a lean project will not be successful as a result. The organization must measure and value each employee based on new metrics that reflect a lean philosophy or behavior and processes will not change Rethink Tooling Similarly, engineers might once have been measured on keeping the cost of tooling low, but in a lean environment, it is more important to ensure that tooling can be changed over quickly to enable frequent changes as the company strives to create only what the customer needs and nothing more. Fool-proofing may require additional jigs that prevent incorrect assembly so that scrap and rework are eliminated, where in the past, such assembly aids might have been considered unnecessary. 1.3 Office Processes In the front office, multiple copies of documents are often printed and stored by different departments, but a review of non-value added steps might show that a single copy in a central file, or even just an electronic copy, might be just as effective and also eliminate the wasted resources spent on printing and filing. The various departments would need to cooperate and collaborate to ensure that the necessary information is readily available. 3

4 2. History of Lean Manufacturing Taiichi Ohno, a former Toyota Motor Company executive, is widely credited with the development of the Toyota Production System, or TPS, which is the body of knowledge and practices from which we draw the concepts of lean manufacturing. Mr. Ohno always claimed that Henry Ford and his assembly line were the inspiration for lean because both systems focus on improving efficiency and eliminating unnecessary steps in the manufacturing process. Ohno s famous summation of TPS, Produce only what you need to satisfy the customer, and nothing more, exemplifies the underlying concepts of TPS. TPS identifies three distinct types of waste: Muda, or production wastes, addressed by minimizing the Tim Wood wastes identified below. Muri, or work imposed by poor organization, or pushing people and machines to unnatural limits is addressed with the five S and Kaizen processes Mura, unevenness or poor processes, which TPS addresses through JIT, Poka-yoke and Heijunka TPS differs from lean as practiced in the U.S. because of the addition of two important concepts: respect for the individual and the pursuit of profit. Many lean practitioners focus on lean tools as agents of change rather than perceiving lean as a management technique, a key difference in the methods and a major differentiator between lean and TPS. One major difference between TPS and lean manufacturing is that TPS identifies these three wastes as distinct wastes to be addresses with specific tools, while lean tends to consider them all as part of the broad definition of muda. The key concept underlying lean manufacturing is the elimination of waste. To that end, the lean process involves evaluating every step to determine if it provides value to the customer. If the step or process provides no value to the customer, the lean practitioner strives to find a way to eliminate or minimize the step. The lean method uses several tools that help to identify non-valued-added steps and all types of waste, as follows: Seven wastes: The seven wastes are transport, inventory, motion, waiting, overproduction, over-processing and defects. Many people remember this list using the mnemonic Tim Wood. Five S: The five Ss include methods for organizing a workspace for maximum efficiency, and include sort, straighten, system, standardize and sustain. Five whys : Asking why at least five times helps to identify the root cause of problems or waste so that it can be effectively addressed Continuous improvement (kaizen): Detailed examination of all aspects of a process to identify areas for improvement Fool proofing (Poka-yoke): Constructing a process in a way that prevents careless errors, often by using design techniques or tools or jigs that prevent incorrect machining or assembly to eliminate defects. Companies often apply lean techniques outside of manufacturing operations. In this case, the technique may be known as the lean enterprise, lean healthcare or lean services, among other names. 4

5 3. Lean Principles in the Front Office While lean started in manufacturing, the principles have widespread applicability even outside of the production facility. Many industries including such non-manufacturing oriented fields as health care and finance have adopted lean techniques to improve their cost structure, reduce errors and improve quality. Here are some ways that lean can improve front office procedures. 3.1 Analyze Office Processes Just as you send a Kaizen team to analyze a particular production process, you may want to send a similar team to analyze key office procedures. Over time, many non-value added steps creep into office procedures, either to compensate for a one-time error or to simplify the day-to-day work for a single individual. These additional steps may no longer be needed and may cause you to waste precious time and resources that could be better spent on more productive pursuits. 3.2 Spreadsheets There is no doubt that spreadsheets are valuable tools, but often, users adopt spreadsheets or manual lists to track status or priorities because they don t know where to find the information they need in your ERP system. As a result, they manually compile data from multiple sources and enter it into a spreadsheet, which now becomes the source of truth. When you find a spreadsheet that has become an integral part of any continuing process other than financial reporting, analyze the reason for its creation. Often, you may find that there is a simple method to eliminate the waste of resources represented by the spreadsheet, traceable to one of these three factors. 1. Education: Often users have no formal or recent education in your company s ERP system. As a result, they may be unaware of many of its capabilities, and they may create spreadsheets to compensate for its perceived shortcomings. Using valuable resources to create spreadsheets when the data is readily available in your ERP is a waste that can be easily identified by applying lean techniques to your office processes. 2. Business Intelligence: If you are not using the Business Intelligence aspects of your ERP system, you are very likely wasting resources by creating spreadsheets or charts that display status information. User dashboards can easily be configured to present the information your team needs in an actionable and easy to read format. 3. Upgrade: If users are complaining that your ERP system doesn t have the capabilities you need or a modern user interface, check out how long it has been since you upgraded your ERP system. Newer releases usually include enhanced functionality and UI improvements that may eliminate the need to create time consuming and resource intensive spreadsheets. 5

6 3.3 Paper Whenever you find a printout or a form in a process, analyze the process to ensure the paper is still necessary. Often you may find that paper forms are a holdover from times past and that the paper can be replaced with electronic copies or eliminated completely. Eliminating paper not only saves money on supplies, but it eliminates waste and frees up resources to work on more productive activities than filing and collating. If you do find that a process requires a step involving paper, design the process in a way that minimizes the number of times the paper must be handled or filed so that the process is maximally efficient. 3.4 Workflow Automated workflow is a feature that can help reduce wait time in many office processes. Whenever there is an approval or review step that can t be eliminated, try to address it with an automated workflow that routes the information automatically and prevents the need for frequent follow-up. These are just a few starting points for using lean techniques in your front office procedures. Start with customer-facing processes, spreadsheet dependent or heavily paper-bound processes and you will find that lean has the same efficiency enhancing effect on office processes as it does in manufacturing. 4. How to Use Lean Management to Improve Profitability Are you looking for ways to improve the profitability of your company? If so, using lean management and manufacturing practices may be just what you need. Lean management (or lean in general) combines processes, methodologies, measurements, and training to increase profits and minimize process breakage. The whole idea is preserving value for the customer with less work. There are generally a couple of questions you should ask when you start thinking about lean management. 1. How does my company perform financially compared to other companies in my industry? You can do this by calculating how efficient your company is at converting raw materials into a finished product. This can be done for your entire company or for individual products. 2. How much profit is my company making from each of its products and services? Using your financial statements, you should be able to determine how much value your company produces when converting raw materials into finished goods. This can either be calculated in dollars or in finished goods per hour. 6

7 Once you have a good idea of how your company is performing, you can then start working on: 1. Maximizing flow. 2. Minimizing company inventory. 3. Meeting all of your customer s requirements. 4. Eliminating waste. 5. Creating a continuous culture of improvement in your organization. 6. Creating partnerships with suppliers and vendors. 7. Following a zero defects program. This is the value being created within your organization s four walls. If you can increase this value, it means you are more productive and therefore more profitable. Using the relative product performance, managers will be able to see relative profit performance and speak with marketing and sales teams about selecting the best product mix. This is also a good time to start operational efficiency projects. Sometimes talking with employees on the front line and getting their thoughts and ideas is the best way to help streamline production and reduce waste using lean manufacturing techniques. Other options could be to increase the price on your least profitable items or lowering the price of your most profitable items to help improve sales. 5. Lean Enhances Competitiveness U.S. manufacturing went through several difficult years as competition from low-wage regions caused a major uptick in outsourcing and offshoring. Slowly but surely, intrepid manufacturers are turning the tide back to on shore manufacturing by increasing efficiency and controlling both costs and quality to decrease or remove completely any price advantages in those low wage regions. Companies have used lean manufacturing and its companion discipline, six sigma, to become more productive and more competitive than ever before in history. By streamlining business processes and reducing unnecessary steps, many companies have completely eliminated the advantage of lower wages. Where the cost differential can t be completely eliminated, companies have offset the competition s lower prices by offering higher quality, faster delivery, superior service and mass customization offerings. If your company is still struggling to hold the line against offshore competition, here are a few ways that lean can help make your company more competitive. 5.1 Reduced inventory costs: When companies work toward just in time delivery of inventory, they find that overall inventory costs decrease. While the reduction may be partially due to drawing down existing inventories, companies also enjoy substantial savings in warehousing and handling costs and inventory shrinkage. 7

8 5.2 Shorter production lead times: Taiichi Ohno s admonition to create only what you need to satisfy the customer and nothing more can sometimes be hard advice for traditional manufacturing companies to understand. Raised on the need to improve traditional metrics such as efficiency and utilization, the realization is that smaller lot sizes lead to shorter run times, less WIP inventory and faster delivery of customer orders. 5.3 Faster order cycle times: Many people consider lean to be a shop floor tool, but in reality it works equally well on any business process. Eliminating non-value added steps in the order entry process reduces order entry cycle times so orders reach the floor faster. Coupled with shorter manufacturing lead times, the overall delivery time is shorter, leading to improved customer satisfaction and fewer follow up inquiries or expedites. 5.4 Higher quality: Fool-proofing the process by using tools or jigs that control the process help to eliminate errors. As a result, there is less scrap and rework, so costs are lower and lead times are shorter. In addition, customers are happier with the reliability and quality of products they receive. 5.5 More cost effective manufacturing: Eliminating non-value added steps, simplifying set ups to support rapid changeovers and generating less scrap combine to make manufacturing more cost effective. As a result, the company is able to compete profitably against competitors, even when there is significant wage disparity. Companies who have adopted lean techniques have seen continual cost reductions and improvements in manufacturing metrics, including customer satisfaction. As a result, lean companies are able to win back business from offshore competitors and continue to enjoy healthy margins and stable order backlogs. These companies have noticed that their customers frequently abandon their efforts at offshoring and return to placing orders with their former local suppliers who satisfy their needs at competitive prices. 6. Lean s Impact on Quality One of the key principles of the lean enterprise is to eliminate waste, and very little is more wasteful than poor quality. Scrap and rework are costly and inefficient. Unhappy customers and returned goods are expensive and can result in loss of market share. A focus on quality is a key value of a lean company. 8

9 6.1 Lean and Six Sigma Six sigma is a discipline focused on identifying and eliminating root causes of poor quality and ensuring that process changes and corrections occur quickly. Six sigma uses many statistical methods to identify and measure quality, and there is also a body of techniques that are very similar to techniques in lean. For example, lean uses Kaizen, the Five Whys and various performance metrics to drive down to the source of a problem and ensure its correction. This is very similar to six sigma s focus on identifying a root cause using a technique called DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control). 6.2 Lean and Mistake Proofing One of the most important lean principles is Poka-yoke, or mistake proofing. This means to design a process in a way that eliminates mistakes or reduces the likelihood of errors. Poka-yoke techniques may include creating tooling that prevents incorrect set up or assembly or creating behavior shaping constraints such as automatically engaging safety latches or levers. There are three distinct methods for engaging poka-yoke. They include: Contact (testing for a specific product characteristic such as shape, placement or color) Constant number (enforcing a specific number of movements or repetitions) Sequence (determining whether all required steps have been followed) Poka-yoke devices prevent a mistake from occurring and are considered a form of control. Other poka-yokes may simply issue a warning so the operator knows a mistake has occurred and can correct it. 6.3 Lean, Quality and Worker Autonomy In a true lean environment, anyone can halt production if they suspect there is a quality issue. Workers may shut down machines or even entire assembly lines if they notice a problem. While some people believe this is a costly process, the reality is that production workers are closest to the product and are often the first to notice when something goes awry. By respecting the worker s insight and knowledge, the company saves time and money because they don t produce poor quality or out of spec goods. The process can be corrected quickly, before the company wastes a large amount of material or is forced to scrap or rework products to meet spec. A short line stoppage to investigate a potential quality issue is actually much less wasteful than fixing quality problems later in the process. 6.4 Lean and Clean Workspace Keeping workspaces clean and well organized is another key aspect of lean that contributes to quality. One way is by ensuring that tools and components are stored in a consistent and orderly manner. This increases efficiency and also prevents errors from mixing up parts that have a similar appearance but different characteristics. A clean workspace also reduces the likelihood of contamination or spoilage. 9

10 Following lean principles makes a company more efficient and helps to control costs, but lean also contributes to product quality. Coupled with a companion discipline such as six sigma, lean has catapulted many companies to higher profitability and increased market share 7. The Lean Supply Chain - Just in Time Inventory One core principle of lean is just in time inventory, or JIT. The objective of JIT is to have minimum inventory on hand to keep production running for a short period, and to have replenishment inventory delivered just as the last few pieces are used. Depending on the item and your supplier s proximity to your facility, you may choose to define a short period as anything from a single shift to a few days worth of inventory. It is generally not feasible to go from having the equivalent of several weeks or months of inventory in stock to having enough to cover just a few hours. It takes time for people to become comfortable with the change and to refine processes so they are predictable enough to make minimal inventory feasible without the risk of stopping production. 7.1 Take it Slow Many companies choose to work their way down from their current inventory levels until they reach a point that they are comfortable with and that their supplier can maintain. During this process, it is vitally important that the company keeps the supplier informed of the intention to move to just in time inventory management. Start with just one or two of your most trusted suppliers, and just a few items. Begin the process by discussing your goals with the supplier, and helping the supplier understand the requirements. 7.2 Make it a Two-Way Street Some companies that move to JIT simply slash the amount of inventory they keep on hand while expecting the supplier to stock more inventory to cover demand fluctuations. While this lowers the original company s inventory cost, it raises the supplier s costs. More frequent deliveries may also increase transportation and delivery costs for the supplier. The company needs to understand that the supplier will need to be compensated for the additional services. The supplier compensation may mean higher prices, which will be offset by lower storage and handling costs. Supplier compensation may also take the form of guarantees on contractual quantities, or agreements to purchase multiple components from the supplier. Suppliers may also have suggestions on ideal delivery lot sizes, or they may have production or delivery restrictions that need to be taken into account. For this reason, a move to JIT should start with open discussions about the goals and objectives of both the company and its key suppliers. 10

11 7.3 Partnership When a company and its suppliers tackle JIT inventory, the relationship changes from a strict company/supplier relationship to one that is more like a partnership. Companies must become more open about their objectives, production methods and may even share cost information. Communication must also include the most accurate possible forecasts, because even though inventory may be delivered daily, it still requires planning to ensure that adequate supplies are available over time and can cover reasonable demand fluctuations. When a company decides to go lean, they achieve benefits in reduced costs, increased efficiency and lower inventories. Taking lean off the production floor and applying it throughout the supply chain increases the benefits exponentially. 8. How to Hold a Kazein Event An important part of the journey to lean is a commitment to continuous improvement. Continuous improvement relies on small incremental changes applied over time rather than a one-time wholesale realignment of a process. Because the company has committed to continuous changes, it needs a process to manage and measure change. In keeping with the lean philosophy of minimizing unnecessary steps, the kaizen process should be simple as well. 8.1 Gather a Team: No matter how well any individual knows a process, the collective strength of a team knows more. You may want to appoint a kaizen leader who facilitates the process, but every member of the kaizen team should be considered equal during the event. Team members should consist of managers, mid-management and doers, and the team will change with each event. It may also be helpful to include people who aren t familiar with the current process, as they will see it with fresh eyes, and to include people from upstream and downstream processes to ensure that vital steps don t get eliminated inadvertently. 8.2 Decide on the Processes to Tackle: The kaizen leader should be responsible for soliciting and tracking suggested processes. Every person in the company should be able to submit a process for review, and the team leader should decide on which process to tackle next based on preliminary analysis of the potential benefits. 8.3 Walk Through the Existing Process: On the day of the event, the team should gather and walk through the process together. Regardless of the process involved, a skilled worker should be performing the task while the team observes and asks questions. The worker should also offer insight into potential or frequent process problems. 11

12 8.4 Measure: It isn t possible to know if you ve improved a process unless you measure the current output, so measuring the process is critical before making any changes. 8.5 Evaluate Ideas: The leader should solicit ideas from all team members, and the team should discuss each one. The leader should ensure that each idea is treated with respect, regardless of the source. The team will prioritize the ideas and decide which ones to implement. 8.6 Measure Changes: Once the process changes have been implemented, it s important to measure the results again to ensure that the changes result in improvements. Continuous improvement only makes sense if the changes result in improvements. There is no sense in changes just for the sake of changes. 8.7 Repeat The continuous improvement process never ends. The team may go on to another process for the next event, or they may return to the original process multiple times. The best results usually occur when the team visits a process multiple times and makes incremental improvements each time. It s a good idea to allow some time to elapse between events for a specific process so that the changes become entrenched and so the team can review the process with fresh eyes. Continuous improvement leads to reduced costs, higher quality and more throughput. Most changes result in measurable incremental improvements which may be small individually but improvements add up to real cost savings as changes continue. 9. Getting Lean with ERP As this document has shown, organizations of every kind should want to get lean. ERP, on the other hand, is sometimes considered a necessary evil or even a creator of waste. But these two disciplines can get along quite nicely as complementary tools in our toolbox. The best definitions of lean consider it to be an endless cycle. We identify value and define it in terms of value to our customer. We map the value stream; we identify all the activities that create value and place them along the stream of our processes. We create flows where our products and services move easily from one step to the next. We establish pulls; nothing is completed and passed along the stream until the downstream operation is ready to receive. We seek perfection, practicing every step until it is automatic and eliminating any unnecessary steps. Then we do it all over again. ERP systems can help facilitate this process in multiple ways. First, today s enterprise systems have wonderful reporting capabilities. Once we have identified value, we need to measure it and report on where value is found and created. A company-wide ERP dashboard that shows where and how value is being delivered can help keep an entire enterprise on track. Whereas, localized dashboards can help individual teams, departments, and workstreams to work together on improving value. 12

13 Additionally, once value streams are mapped, ERP systems can help eliminate anything not adding value to the stream. We can backflush production materials and eliminate transactions. We can automatically pay charges from selected suppliers, even crediting their banks directly eliminating the need to write a check. ERP systems today also feature innovative workflow capabilities where a series of smaller, individual transactions can be linked into a single, complete transaction. A workflow can set up a new customer in the master data file, enter necessary financial and credit information, remind us to set up contacts and reminders in the CRM, and accept the first order in a single session without the need to pass files from department to department hoping each one completes the work on time and in relation to another. Finally, production kanbans are commonly used to pull a product through to completion. When one person is ready to ship an order, the person before is putting the product in a box. And only then does the prior person apply the finish paint to the next one coming along. This way we avoid finishing ahead of need and building inventory that cannot be moved along and sold. No longer is a kanban a card requesting delivery from the upstream operation. Now the kanban is an electronic signal generated by our ERP. ERP is a powerful tool we can use to help us meet our goals. If our goal is lean, we can set up and use our ERP to help achieve that goal. 10. Lean and ERP in Production Whether your manufacturing facility focuses on discrete, process or mixed mode manufacturing, applying lean techniques can create major improvements. Even in highly regulated industries such as medical device manufacturing, there is a place for all key lean techniques. Some lean advocates try to eliminate ERP and other software systems on the grounds that they add non-value added steps to the management process - but this is not the case. Even highly lean companies use ERP for calculating long range demand and to assist in replenishing materials. In addition, lean companies use forecasting software for S&OP and financial and cost accounting solutions for reporting. Regulatory compliance and tracking and tracing units and components is simpler when automated, and process documentation is easily communicated using software components. Here are a few ways that software and lean coexist JIT and Backflushing One of the most misunderstood aspects of lean is the use of JIT inventory and backflushing. The assumption is that backflushing components breaks the chain of traceability from component to final customer. In most cases, this is not true. Most modern ERP systems allow components to be backflushed while capturing lot and / or serial numbers as required. All backflushing a trackable component does is change the point in the process where the manufacturer captures traceability information. Since the information capture now occurs closer to the actual point of use, many companies find that it is simpler and more accurate than traditional push systems. 13

14 Some companies in the medical device industry shy away from lean because of concerns about regulatory compliance, but this should not be a real concern since even hospitals and pharmaceutical companies apply lean techniques. The important point is to follow procedures, document process changes and to put security safeguards in place that ensure audit trails Lean and ISO Certification Another area of common concern is the effect of continuous process changes on ISO certifications. If part of the Kaizen process includes updating procedure documentation to reflect changes to the process, there is no ISO violation. It s important that written procedures match the physical activities, and many companies find that using their ERP system s routing solution helps them to keep production processes up to date. In addition, by storing the information in a single location, they minimize the need for maintaining documentation in multiple locations Lean and Cost Accounting Cost accounting is an area that will probably require many process changes to adapt to lean manufacturing. Since lean manufacturing companies often eliminate work orders, they also eliminate accounting s traditional vehicle for cost capture. Lean accounting eliminates traditional variance calculations and focuses instead on metrics and throughput. Companies that are serious about adopting lean should consider accounting a key part of the lean transformation journey. Production, management and accounting need to work together to define the metrics they will focus on and ensure that the necessary information to calculate results is available. While the details of lean cost accounting go beyond the scope of this article, there are numerous sources that can be used to define specific metrics Lean and Business Intelligence Modern business intelligence systems usually include a variety of metrics and dashboards that make it simple to track production performance. Users monitor the KPIs that they are responsible for and often receive workflow alerts letting them know when results exceed pre-defined thresholds. The best part of business intelligence and KPIs is the immediacy, since information on problems can be communicated right away while there is still time to make corrections before a large amount of rework becomes necessary. These are just a few of the ways that lean techniques and ERP software coexist. Carefully blending lean principles with your ERP processes gives you the speed and accuracy of ERP and the agility, adaptability and low costs of lean. 14

15 11. Conclusion A transition to lean practices is a significant undertaking. Fortunately, there are multiple techniques, methodologies, and guidance available to any organization considering the task. Regardless of which path and tools are employed, enterprises must also consider the IT requirements and whether their organization s existing IT infrastructure and applications either support or hinder their lean initiatives. And as an organization embraces lean, they must be ready for changes in every department, from human resources to finance and logistics - not just manufacturing. 15

16 About Merit Solutions Merit Solutions is a global business process consultant and systems integrator with offices in North America and Europe. We are a focused-strategy company with the goal of being the very best at helping clients automate, grow, and transform their business through process mapping and optimization, change management, and innovative IT consulting and development services. Merit Solutions works with clients to understand and triangulate their exact business needs in terms of people, workstreams, and enabling systems. From future state business process mapping to systems analysis, fit-gap process definition and scoping, sourcing, design and deployment, integration with other systems, and ongoing support - we provide end-to-end global services that help clients successfully transform their business and build a foundation that continuously flows value to their customers. Our clients are typically medium to large, global enterprises who are challenged by inefficient workstreams that cost money, waste time, and reduce quality; information flows and systems that no longer support the goals of the company; and lack of visibility into business data which impedes effective decision making. Additional Resources Related resources to this white paper include: Achieving Supply Chain Visibility with Globally Adopted Systems and Processes BPI, BPM, and ERP Decisions, Visibility, and Customer Service: The Value of ERP Information on Merit Solutions or other publications can be found on 1749 South Naperville Road, Suite 200 Wheaton, IL