This got me thinking though…It is very difficult and sometimes foolish to outsource the manufacturing IT part of IT to traditional IT outsourcing companies.   Let me explain.

There are many facets to “traditional” IT - from infrastructure, help desk, security, applications, communications, etc.  Many of these can be outsourced successfully.  However, for manufacturers, there is also the “manufacturing IT” side of IT, that demands a knowledge of the business, how to integrate with automation and equipment, and the flow of information in the production environment.

Strategically, this is dangerous to outsource because it is so tightly coupled to the business.  Manufacturing IT can be a strategic weapon, and most people don’t treat it that way.  They assume, naively, that IT is just IT.

What I would have done:

1. Start with what the business problem is.  What is the real problem and what would be the most efficient way to solve it?  A database might not be the right solution. (Right Kevin?)

2. If because of #1 or because there is a regulatory requirement, a database is required, make it as simple to build and own as possible.  That means starting with software that most people know or that you can get anyone to upgrade in the future.

2a - My opinion is there are way more people that know Microsoft technologies (ASP, .NET, SQL Server, etc.) than do Oracle.  Also, a PHP and MySQL solution would have more worldwide resources available than an Oracle solution.

3.  Get a couple opinions before you start (especially if you do not do this every day.)  Ask some friends, technical advisors, etc. before you start to spend money. 

Unfortunately for this manufacturer they spent about 5x more money than they should have for what they got and now they have something that no one is going to want to touch.  Because they knew the developer and she was only charging them $40/hour, they thought they were getting a deal!

oh, 1a - see if there is a good Commercial-off-the-shelf solution (COTS) that works before you build it.

I met with a smaller company today that I have been watching from afar for a while.  They have spent WAY TOO MUCH money on a simple application that they want to help them run manufacturing better.  This application has some functionality that exists in an old FileMaker Pro database application and the task was to bring forward that functionality and add to it.

The developer they hired to write the new application chose Oracle (the free express version) because that is what they knew.  Now the company is between a rock and a hard place because the developer is not done, they are way over budget, the application is not tested yet, and there is more scope they would really like to complete!!!

I was too late!  Tune in next post for what I would have done differently…

http://www.mbtmag.com/article/CA6570888.html?nid=3436&rid=1258896918

SAP to buy Visiprise.  Those of us in the business knew it was coming at some point, and it happened.  What will be really interesting is to see what this does to the relationships SAP has with other key players in the industry like Camstar, Apriso, Wonderware, Rockwell, etc.  All of these companies have some type of technical or strategic relationship with SAP so they can all say they can “connect to SAP with their MES solutions.”

So now what?  It was hard to argue with a customer that says something like “I spent $XXM on SAP to run my business and if I can leverage that investment to help me run my operations better, that is what I am going to do.”  In the mid to long term, it is going to be very hard to convince a company to use a different MES solution other than Visiprise if they are an SAP user.

I have often wondered who is going to “win” in the MES space - ERP or the Automation vendors.  This move would appear to be a swing in the direction of ERP winning the battle for MES.  I have been silent on posts for a while, but this will provide some good thoughts in the upcoming weeks.

With MES projects, there are so many factors.  I walked into our conference room yesterday and saw our guys working on a quote for a customer.  The list of risks they were talking over filled on whole white board.

We keep getting taught this lesson, but we need to start small, get something working very solidly, and then move on from there.  This approach lessons the risk for our customers and our team.

I often liken MES projects to building a house.  It isn’t enough to go to a custom builder and give them requirements like this:

• 5 bedrooms
• 4 full baths
• 3 car garage
• 5,500 square feet
• Oh, and we want this to be our dream home.

NO, NO, NO!  We all know that a builder would laugh you out of his office and say, “Come back with some architectural blueprints, some specifications, and a budget.”  Even if the builder was a Design Build firm, you would expect the clock to start then, and to pay for the design of your new home!

However, so many times I see companies trying to do the same thing with MES projects.  Requirements go something like this:

• OEE
• Tracking and Genealogy
• Reporting (including drill-down and ad-hoc reports)
• Schedule dispatch
• Label printing
• NO, NO, NO!  There is no way the customer is going to get what they want.  There is no way they are going to get an apples-to-apples comparison from different vendors.

In coming posts, I will explore how manufacturing companies can do a better job of laying out requirements.  Who knows, maybe we will even post some templates!

I have a slightly different opinion.

While I believe that standardizing, condensing, purging and streamlining can enhance business performance; I don’t think implementing an ERP system is the cause of all of these changes - and therefore improvements.  I think companies that chose to replace their legacy system with a modern ERP solution, are improving their business in many ways besides focusing on the ERP implementation.  Lets look at some other possible factors:

1. Companies that put in new ERP systems are probably already making money.  Most struggling companies don’t say “lets put in a new ERP, that is our key to turning this thing around.”

2. Companies that put in a new ERP system are improving many parts of their business and the support of a modern, consolidated solution helps in those improvements.

3.   This is just a hunch, but most people in leadership that choose to implement a new ERP system have done it before.  It happens, but I’ll bet it is rare to have the legacy leadership choose to move away from the legacy systems.  More often, there is a change in leadership, ownership, etc. that leads to these changes.

I believe modern systems can definitely have positive affects on the business.  However, I think the positive performance of these companies due to many factors.

I would be curious to hear what everyone thinks about this?

I love Microsoft, we are a Gold certified partner!  However, today I ran into a problem where you cannot FTP files to your webserver if you are using FrontPage extensions.  So, we have been using FrontPage for a long time as our primary web development tool, and now we find ourselves corrupting files by using FTP to transfer files back and forth.

Since the rest of the world uses other web development technologies, the primary way to send these files to your server is FTP.  Now that I am using Elance to help me on my websites, I need to be able to use FTP!

I guess I am going to have to move away from FrontPage (well now it is Expression Web).

Ahhh, the learning stages again….

Then, not at all.

We all (Flexware and the customer) found out the way he had justified the MES project was by using some budget left over from another project.  They certainly needed the MES, and we all knew this was going to be a great solution.  These games get played with capital money sometimes, but this one got some real scrutiny when this guy left the company.  The project manager we were working for (she worked for the sponsor that left) called us and asked us to stop our work immediately.

The big meeting….

So here we are, a small company with this large project, stalled.  The Plant Manager called a meeting and asked us (now this was our problem) how we were going to justify this project.  He said “If you can’t tell me right now how much this project is going save me, we are not going to do it.”  Of course, he meant finish it.  I replied by saying “Justifying MES systems is very difficult and requires good data, great understanding of the problems and opportunities, and will take some time.  I can have the project finished in the amount of time it will take to do the justification.”

After some more flaming hoops, we got to finish the project and it all ended well.  It is a constant reminder that sometimes MES takes vision and faith.  I liken it to on-line banking.  There were probably many “old-school” banks that probably scoffed when someone said “you better get online banking up and running here or you may be out of business.”  “Where is the ROI?  Prove it to me!”, they said.  I hope they took the leap of faith and invested in these improvements, because if not, they may be watching from the sidelines.

Same goes for manufacturing and MES investments.  Sometimes it is ROI, vision, and faith combined that gets these projects done.  Sometimes it is leftover capital budget.