ERP invades households for good

Location : Earth
Year : 2025


Scene 1: Suraj, who just joined “Worldwide Mart” 2 days ago, was in his way to deliver his first order to one of the customers and was apprehensive whether his details are already mapped with customer’s Unit Resource Planning (URP) system or not? He reached customer’s place and found that there is nobody at home. He tried scanning his hand on the door bell scanner and was happy to find that his finger prints matched with information in customer URP and the automatic door of delivery box fixed on the wall opened. He again scanned the ship order & invoice on the scanner in delivery box and kept the goods there. The door closed automatically once the activity was over and Suraj moved to the next customer address.

Scene 2: Krish, gets a mail (delivered on smartphone) containing dashboard from his URP. The dashboard has a set of recommendations and suggestions. The URP recommended that since there is an acute demand supply gap currently in house-keeping services, he should renegotiate the rates of house maid, baby sitter and gardener with the agency. A drilldown facility allowed him to see what the prevailing rates are for this week. The dashboard also highlighted the utility and credit card bills that are due for payment. Krish authorizes URP to pay all bills on due date using intelligent payment system which maximizes interest income in saving accounts & credit cards. The dashboard also provides suggestions for holidaying, eating out and other leisure activities as configured by Krish in his URP. His life is made easy with URP and he is far less stressed than before and family life is as smooth as silk.

 

Scene 3: Jacky, is standing at his home with his family and society caretaker and verified that nothing is missing from his house while it was tried to be ransacked by thieves last night when they were out. The Group Resource Planning (GRP) system installed by the society was subscribed by Jacky, which is integrated with the security system at his house. The security system raised an alarm upon an intrusion and in addition of the alerts that went to prescribed people/groups, information was sent to GRP too which not only closed all possible exits from society but also sent alerts to all subscribing households in society. The thieves were struck inside the house only and were captured by police red-handed.

You must be wondering what is a URP and GRP when this article is for ERP. Well, ERP, over the years have evolved and has expanded its reach from large, medium and small enterprises to households and group housing societies. For a house, it is now called as URP (Unit Resource Planning) and for a Group of units; it is called as GRP (Group Resource Planning). The clouds have taken over and there is no need for people to invest in hardware to take benefits of ERP just they do not have to build a powerhouse for drawing power to run their appliances at home.

Scene 1 showed us how automated deliveries from retail marts to houses will happen with hand/finger scanning systems installed at homes which means that an authorized person will deliver the goods and even when there is nobody at home. The orders will be placed through smart phones and all systems will be integrated to process orders and payments.

Scene2 showed us how our lives will be made comfortable with ERP/URP with an electronic personal assistant taking over and completing all important tasks either by providing recommendations or if authorized, finishing them on their own.

Security is another area (Scene 3) where ERP/GRP will act as our personal watchman which will have less than 0.2% probability of failure (Six Sigma) and people can travel to spend their vacations without worrying about the thefts etc. till the thieves come out with another novel way to intrude.

I am convinced that ERP is here to stay and will be further invading our lives in future. Only software programs like ERPs will be able to control the robots that humans are planning to use for home chores in future. In addition, ERPs also have the potential to educate our children finding their improvement areas when they record their progress in them. The potential is huge and only things like ROI, hunger for more etc. will drive its use among larger population.

Budgeting, Forecasting and Financial Planning: Critical Success Factors for your organization

An effective financial plan is the means by which an organization underlines their strategic business financial objectives. A well-thought and prepared financial budget creates the platform for effective decision-making during the performance period. And it also forms the basis for the forecast which enables organization to plan future goals based on recent actual performance. All best in class organizations today need to have the tools that provide highest visibility and maneuverability for balancing plans with real life. Just to measure, please ask questions to yourself:

• What is the overall budget accuracy level for your organization
• What is forecast accuracy level
• How much improvement, the organization achieved in profitability year over year
• How many times your budget was ready before next fiscal year
• What is the level of process standardization in the organization

These will give you a small idea on where are you placed currently. You will find that following actions will help you achieve Best-in-Class performance:

• Use technology to automate and assist in the budgeting process
• Have visibility into all factors and collaborate with all stakeholders
• Consider alternative scenarios and have the ability to change forecasts, plans, and budgets mid-stream

Cost controls have remained a significant driver of the financial planning and budgeting process throughout the past four years and have only intensified again this year. Efficiency of the process rounds out the top four challenges in spite of the fact that it typically happens only once a year. Yet it also happens at a time when the urgency of closing out a fiscal year is most intense. There is risk in focusing all the attention on the present at the expense of careful planning for the future.

Overall budget accuracy reflects the ratio of actual revenue and cost (bottom line) to budget, with 100% accuracy as the ideal. A budget which is 100% accurate is reflective of either an accurate prediction of revenue and costs, or good controls in place to manage against budget, or both. Because of the continued emphasis on the ability to respond to changing market conditions, forecast accuracy is also included in the Best-in-Class criteria, reflecting the rising importance placed on agility. Accuracy is tempered with improvement and / or preservation of profitability. While achieving budget and forecast accuracy is viewed as important, it cannot come at the expense of good business. An organization’s ability to finalize the budget prior to the beginning of the new fiscal period is indicative of the performance of the financial planning and budgeting process. The use of automation to assist in the planning process leads to an efficiency that is very hard to achieve only with manual processes and the ubiquitous spreadsheet. Automation of the process not only boosts efficiency, but also helps insure that standards, methodology and proper review cycles happen as planned. This automation is essential in analyzing driver based scenarios and providing "what if" analysis.

The steps to success as per us are:

• Use technology enablers to receive alerts triggered by internal and external events
• Increase the frequency with which forecasts are updated
• Perform "what-if" scenarios and change analysis before finalizing plans
• Use technology to be automatically guided through steps of the financial planning, budgeting, and forecasting process
• Establish enterprise-wide collaboration from the top-down and bottom-up as well as across departments
• Align sales forecasts with overall business revenue and cost forecasts

Go ahead and give them a try to check-out how much they benfit you.

Best Practices: PLM and QMS Integration for your organization

The impact quality can have on corporate performance is often misunderstood and underestimated by manufacturing organizations. If we examine the design-make-deliver processes, there are a number of workflows where the incorporation of a closed loop quality management initiative would yield tangible benefits. Largely, it has been observed by InfoVerto that manufacturers that have implemented a PLM and quality management interoperability solution, are better able to manufacture products and subsequently get them to market quicker and at a higher quality, all while streamlining operations across the design, make, and deliver process. To present it with facts, organizations with PLM and Quality Management Interoperability had 83% overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), 80% successful new product introductions (NPI) and 90% on-time and complete shipments whereas organizations without PLM and Quality Management Interoperability had 81% overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), 75% successful new product introductions (NPI) 88% on-time and complete shipments. This data bring two facts – 1st that PLM & QMS interoperability makes organizations more efficient and 2nd that there are some best practices that if followed can make your organization better equipped. To go a little further, in fact, across the board, these manufacturers are able to achieve an 83% OEE rate, which shows that these companies are better utilizing their assets because of improved quality capabilities, as well as, enjoy 6% more successful new product introductions. In the case of certain industries, even a 1% or 2% increase can have a significant impact; a 6% advantage can translate into millions of dollars of business. In addition, these manufactures were also able to achieve 90% on-time and complete shipment rate. Companies that have yet to implement system interoperability between and QMS software can use this research to understand the best practices implemented by those companies that have, and use this information in their strategic as well as tactical actions.

Up until this point, we've addressed the importance of having PLM and QMS software interoperability. And while this interoperability is a key enabler, achieving Closed Loop Quality Management takes more than a technology implementation. It takes an enterprise-wide commitment to quality, a culture of operational excellence, and providing employees with the right quality information, at the right time, and in the right context. When looked at in their entirety, this set of business processes enables the incorporation of quality management into the complete lifecycle of products and processes across engineering and manufacturing.

In a nutshell, the best practices that will help companies achieve closed loop quality management and are associated with improvements in a number of key performance indicators are:

• Standardize processes for responding to adverse events across the enterprise
• Executive sponsorship for closed loop quality management
• Perform quality planning early
• Invest in PLM and QMS software interoperability