You get your car serviced regularly. You probably review your mortgage regularly to make sure you’re on a competitive rate. (Hopefully) you see a doctor every so often for a regular health check. But do you ever review the performance of your ERP system, aka the heart of your organisation, to make sure it’s in good shape? If you’re like many other manufacturers, probably not but don’t worry, here are some tips to make sure that you get your system back to performing at its highest level.
An ERP system can be a major investment for manufacturers, in terms of cost, time and resource. Once you’ve implemented one, you want to make sure you are making full use of it, all day, every day. Here’s 3 key things you should be doing to maximise your ERP investment.
1. Training
It’s an obvious and easy point to make but it’s surprising how many companies don’t undertake regular training for their team. ERP systems are complex and do require some initial training. After implementation, all relevant personnel usually come out of the training, confident and ready to use their new software. But a good ERP system will have a long life-cycle, often longer than the original employee, who moves on to another role or company, taking their knowledge with them.
Setting up regular training dates has several benefits – new employees can enjoy formal training and existing employees have the chance to refresh or build on their current use of the system. Also encourage your team to use the training resources at their disposal such as knowledge bases within the system and online training options. Don’t be that company with an old ERP system that no-one left in the company knows how to use!
2. Servicing
Yes, it’s true – an ERP system is a machine that should also be regularly serviced. Are you using the most up to date version of your software? Regularly updating to the most current version allows you to get rid of any bugs or glitches that may hamper your work.
Are all the parts working effectively? Maybe there’s areas of the system that you are choosing not to use and these can be streamlined to help your team focus on what’s important to them. Or you may have a business process that wasn’t well defined to start with, making the system harder to use. Regular reviewing can identify these issues and help resolve them.
New modules may also be available with functionality that you can take advantage of. We’ve seen some of our customers start with a few key areas of E-Max initially before progressing to use every part of the system – even those parts they thought they’d never have a need for. Keep up to date with what’s new so you don’t miss valuable opportunities to perform more efficiently.
3. Utilising
Following nicely on from that last point, is the utilisation (or use) of the software. ERP systems, like E-Max ERP, have so much functionality that it’s easy for users to forget about some of these features. Users may become accustomed to using their ERP system for the same day-to-day processes or information.
Keep thinking about what other information you may want from your ERP system and ask your provider if it’s available. Less frequently used reports can offer deep insights and opportunities to improve your efficiency even further. Continuous improvement is a concept that can and should be applied to the use of software as well as to business processes.
By following these three simple tips, you can be confident you’ll be getting real value from your ERP system. For more information on E-Max ERP and how we can help you get the most from an ERP system, please give us a call on 0808 109 2035, email us or arrange a short personalised online demo to see what else E-Max ERP can do for your business.
