Process

Sure Step in action: business process change

  • Post comments:3 Comments
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Service Providers (or colloquially partners) often refrain from undertaking organization or process changes during implementation projects of Microsoft Dynamics solutions. And it comes as no surprise: there are many risks related to it, and customizations are taken as a more traditional approach.

Customizations are easy to predict, they do come at risk, but at least the risks are known and often easily managed entirely within service provider’s organization and reach, while organizational change is unpredictable, and often exceeds consultants’ knowledge, experience and expertise.

However, with or without intention or consent, organizational change will always happen. No solution has ever been 100% fit, and since the customer must do their business with the solution, the remainder from fit to 100% will always and without exception be satisfied with an unmanaged, unintentional, but evolutionary process change.

Instead of leaving it all to chance, Sure Step offers much better ways.

(more…)

Continue ReadingSure Step in action: business process change

Requirements and Process Review – Critical vs. Non Critical

  • Post comments:3 Comments
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Requirements and process review is one of the decision accelerators in the Diagnostic phase of the Sure Step, aimed at gaining deeper understanding of customer’s business processes, and documenting high level requirements, as well as possible implementation issues. As such, it is an indispensable input into further decision accelerators and the implementation project itself.

One of the activities done in scope of this decision accelerator is identifying high-level implementation issues which are then classified into critical and non-critical. I’ve done some requirements and process reviews and had a chance to discuss it with consultants and project managers, and I’ve often found people to be somewhat confused with the logic behind this classification, because at the first glance it seems totally reverse: what you could call critical shooting from the hip, is in fact non-critical, and what you could say is non-critical, turns in fact to be critical. And it requires some general shift in the point of view of what consultants are generally used to in scope of typical gap analysis activities.

(more…)

Continue ReadingRequirements and Process Review – Critical vs. Non Critical

Microsoft Dynamics for Manufacturing – differences between various Dynamics flavors

  • Post comments:3 Comments
  • Reading time:4 mins read

image Houston Neal from Software Advice recently wrote a nice and a very detailed article on the Differences Between Microsoft Dynamics products. It’s an interesting article and gives a good overview of where different Microsoft Dynamics products stand, and overall I recommend you to read it, even though personally I don’t agree with everything in there.

I like good argument, but I don’t like disagreeing just for the sake of it, and this was one of those articles that I would prefer disagreeing in private. But Houston was so persistent in me expressing my opinion on his article here on my blog, that I just decided to speak up.

After all, everyone is entitled to my opinion 😉

(more…)

Continue ReadingMicrosoft Dynamics for Manufacturing – differences between various Dynamics flavors

Discreet and process manufacturing difference

  • Post comments:22 Comments
  • Reading time:2 mins read

When implementing NAV in manufacturing companies, I’ve sometimes heard complaints that the type of manufacturing supported in NAV doesn’t fit the customer needs.

And sometimes that’s completely true. NAV supports discreet manufacturing, and it handles it pretty well. But the things do get bumpy when you venture into process manufacturing world.

Sometimes customers or even consultants don’t really understand why this happens. It’s simple: there is a big difference between process and discreet manufacturing, and to successfully implement NAV in these two fundamentally different environments you need to understand and appreciate these differences.

(more…)

Continue ReadingDiscreet and process manufacturing difference