Thursday, July 15, 2010

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 13th Installation - Work Flow (BPM)

1. Provide the ability to access the ERP database to trigger alerts and integrate database transactions into the Work Flows

2. Provide a Wizard for defining Workflows - graphically

a. Provide for decision branching, parallel paths and approval check points

b. Provide for electronic signoff

c. Provide for the linking/attachment of Documents and ERP Transactions

3. Provide for complete monitoring and alerts on any business process

4. Provide for a To Do List by User, when they login - so they can seee their open tasks

5. Provide for e-mail alerts for Outside resources involved in a process

6. Integrate Document Management with the Work Flow

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 12th Installation - General Ledger

1. Provide a flexible Account Structure with Department and Cost Center sub-divisions

a. Allow for the roll-up of low-level accounts into intermediate-level accounts amd intermediate-level accounts into high-level accounts via a Bill-Of-Matetial structure approach, rahter than a pre-determined Account Number scheme

2. Provide the ability to post to previously closed periods

3. Provide for flexble Budgets

4. Provide for flxible and easy financial statement and financial analysis report creation

5. Provide for financial consolidation of subsidiaries

6. Provide drill-down capability

7. Provide for posting to prevoiusly closed periods

8. Provide for 12 or13 Fiscal Periods

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 11th Installation - Accounts Payable

1. Provide for a 3-waymatch on Voucher creation from Purchase Order Receipts

2. Provide for manual Voucher creation

3. Provide for recurring payments such as monthly insurance, budgeted phone bill, rent, etc.

4. Provide for multiple payment selecion methods by (Vendor, age, amount, etc.)

5. Provide for manual checks

6. Provide On-line update to Job Cost for linked Purchase Order Vouchers

7. Provide for Purchase Price Vaiance Analysis and adjustmants

8. Provide for easy Bank Check reconcilliation

9. Provide a pre-check run Vouchers To Be Processed Report, as well as, a Check Register

10. Provide drill-down capability

11. Provide the ability to post to previously closed periods

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 10th Installation - Accounts Receivable

1. Provide Balance Forward and/or Open Item Cash Application

a. Allow Cash Application by Customer Name and Address as an alternative to Customer Number/ID

b. Allow the Cash Application at a Bill-To Customer to update the Credit Limit and other statistics of its Corporate/Parent Company's Customer record

c. Allow Customer Statements to roll-up by Bill-To for a specified Corporate/Parent Company

2. Provide Invoice generation from Shipments

3. Provide for manually entered (Invoices, Credit Memos & Debit Memos)

4. Provide an Invoice Register, Commission, Tax, sales Analysis and Aging Reports

5. Provide the options to print, Fax or e-mail Invoices to the Customer

6. Provide format able Customer Statements which could either be printed or faxed to a Customer

7. Provide the option of Consolidated Invoices by Customer

8. Provide the option of Progress Billing by Customer or Sales Order

9. Provide drill-down capability

1o. Provide the ability to post to previously closed periods

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 9th Installation - Quality Assurance

1. Provide Non-conformance Management

2. Provide for Scrap Reporting with Reason Codes (Jobs/Work Orders at the Order and Operation level)

3. Provide for Discrepant Material Reporting with Debit Memo creation

4. Provide for Corrective Action with sign-off and reviews

5. Provide for a Material review Board and audit trail of actions

6. Provide cost of Quality reports

7. Provide for Certificates of Compliance

a. Providing full spcifications and test results of all raw materials used in each manufactured part

8. Provide Inspection Plan Management

9. Provide Product Change Request Management

10. Provide Vendor Management

11. Provide Calibration Management

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 8th Installation - Advanced Planning & Scheduling Requirements

1. Provide a System Parameter for the Default Packing & Shipping Lead-Time.

a. See REQ # 36 in Inventory Requirements.

2. Provide a System Parameter for the Default Dock-To-Stock Lead-Time

a. See REQ # 37 in Inventory Requirements.

3. Provide the ability to Firm a Planned Order for a muli-level Job recognizing the Available Inventory for the lower-level Sub-Assemblies and manufactured Components in a Planner's Workbench:

a. If the extended requirement for a lower-level Component was 100 and 25 were Available in stock, the Release Quantity for this Component's Job would equal 75

4. Provide the ability to Release the lower levels of a multi-level Job from the bottom up, in order to avoid giving the Shop Floor a higher level Job prior to lower level Sub-Jobs being well under way or completed.

5. Provide the ability to do "What if" for the Planning of Material and/or Capacity to evaluate:

a. Adjusting Capacity by Resource up or down for a time period.

b. Adding Shits or Overtime by Resource for a time period.

c. Pushing out or pulling in specific Jobs.

d. Replacing or supplementing Sales Orders with a Master Schedule or Forecast.

6. Provide for the Scheduling and Costing of Maintanance Jobs which would reduce the available Capacity of the Work Center/Machine being maintained without impacting WIP.

7. Provide a graphical load profile screen for a Number of (Days, Weeks or Months) for a given Resource (Department, Work Center Group, Work Center or Machine)

a. With drill-down capability to Job Operation level from the Resource (Department, Work Center Group, Work Center or Machine)

8. Provide for multi-Resource constraints (Work Center, Man Power, Tools, Fixturing, etc.) when Finite Capacity Scheduling a Job's Operation.)

9. Take Material Availability into account when Scheduling an Operation with material linked to it.)

10. Provide Kanban planning, trigger mechanism and controls)

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

ERP Requirements Gathering Tips 7th Installation - Purchasing

1. In Purchase Order Enter, when adding an PO, provide the ability to enter a Vendor's Name and filter on it rather than requiring the entry of a Vendor ID

a. Provide for optional adding a Vendor ID "On-The-Fly".

2. Provide for a Remit-To and Ship-To per Line Item on both Blanket and Regular Purchase POs.

a. This allows easy accommodation for large User Company's that purchase on a centralized basis for multiple locations within their company.

3. Provide Blanket Purchase POs which have scheduled Releases working off a total quantity ordered with a Contractual end date.

a. Provide for multiple Part #'s on a Blanket PO with multiple Releases per Part #/Line Item. The Unit Price on the Line item applies to all of its Releases.

b. If a receipt quantity is entered against an open Release and exceeds its open balance, apply the excess to the next Release.

4. Provide for Regular Purchase POs which can have multiple Lines each with different Part #, Prices, Quantities and Requested Dates:

a. If a non-Part is being ordered, a G/L Account and Cost Center are required.

5. Provide user determined Receiving Rules by Purchase PO defaulting from System Parameters:

a. Number of days allowable Early or Late Receipt.

b. Allowable Over or Under Receipt %

c. When the allowable % is reached the receiving program will close the Line Item on Regular POs or the Releases on a Blanket PO

6. Provide for a Vendor ID to be used in place of an Order or Line Item Ship-To where one Vendor is shipping material or Outside Service line Items to another Vendor for additional processing.

7. Provide for the optional Receipts of "chained" PO's, based on the of Receipts the LAST PO in the chain.

8. Provide for Notes at the Purchase Order, Line Item and Release levels - see Req # 9 in IT Requirements.

9. Provide for a Part/Vendor Cross-Reference File/Table which provides the following:

a. Quoted Qunatity Price breaks

b. Standing Lot Charges with Description are automatically added to the Purchase Order.

c. Vendor's Part # and Description (prints on PO as supplemental Line Item description.

d. Vendor's Unit of Measure and Conversion ratio to our Purchasing Unit of Measure.

e. Last Year's Purchases (this Part $ and quantity)

f. YTD Purchases

g. Prior (PO #, Unit Price, Quantity & Date)

h. Vendor/Part lead-Time.

10. Provide the following status and tracking data by Purchase Order:

a. Created Date, Time & User ID

b. Release Date, Time & User ID

c. Last Manual Change Date, Time & User ID

d. First Printed Date, Time & User ID

e. Last Re-Printed Date, Time & User ID

f. Closed/Completed Date, Time & User ID

g. Re-Opened Date, Time & User ID

h. Last Receipt Transaction Date & Time

i. RFQ Copied From

11. Provide full featured Vendor Mister File/Table:

a. Automatic Vendor Number creation - next available.

b.Vendor Name

c. Address Line (1,2 & 3), City, State/Prov, Zip Code, Country, EU Code

d. Sales Contact Name, Title, Phone, Fax, EDI, E-mail.

e. Payables Contact Name, Title, Phone, Fax, EDI, E-mail.

f. Remit-To Vendor ID other than 11-a for Large Vendor companys with centralized A/PV

g. Ship Via selected from a dropdown list.

h. Language, Currency, Vendor Type (user defined), SIC, D&B, Bank Code, Vendor's Bank Code (A/P payment)

i. Credit Limit, Available Credit

j. Balance Method (Open Item, Balance Forward)

k. Payment Type (Check, Draft, Wire, etc.)

l. Payment Hold Reason Code and Date

m. Payment terms

n. Statement Frequency

o. Letter of Credit Required

q. Invoice Frequency (Daily, Weekly, Monthly, etc.)

r. Invoice Type (Individual, By Purchase Order, Consolidated).

s. E-mail Invoices (Y/N)

t. Tax ID

u. Payments & Purchases (Month-To-Date, Year-To-Date, Last Year)

v. Discounts Received (YTD, Last Year)

w. Last (Invoive #, Invoice Date, Payment Date, Finance Charge Date)

x. Last Purchase date

y. RFQ (Fax, E-mail or print)

z. PO (Eax, E-mail or print)

12. Provide for the Purchase and Receipt of non-Inventory.

13. Provide for the Receipt and immediate Issue/Charging of referenced PO Line Items to the referenced Sales Order or Jobs

14. Provide RFQ's with the following functionality:

a. Multiple Line Items per RFQ and multiple Vendors per Line Item is required.

b. Notes at the RFQ, and RFQ Line Item levels.

c. A Quantity Price Break Table with lead-times for each RFQ Line Item

d. The RFQ Print could process all of the attached Vendors:

1) Auto Fax if the Vendor is setup for Fax.

2) Auto E-Mail the RFQ, if the Vendor is setup for e-mail.

3) If the Vendor is not setup for Fax or E-mail, print hard copy.

d. Effectively, each Vendor attached to a given RFQ Line Item has a separate copy of the Line Item in which to store their responses (Quantity, Price, Lead-Time).

e. Once a Vendor has been designated as winning the RQF, prompt the user to create a Purchase Order from the RFQ

f. Provide for non-Parts on RFQ Line Items

15. Provide for the Print Purchase Order program to prompt the User to: a. E-mail the Purchase Order, if the Customer has an e-mail address.

b. Fax the Purchase Order, if the Customer has a Fax number.

c. Print the Purchase Order by default.

16. Provide an all purpose Vendor Inquiry driven by entering a Vendor ID or a partical Vendor Name match with the following display options:

a. Purchase Orders

b. Purchase Order Lines

c. Receipt Detail

c. RFQ

d. RFQ Lines

f. Remit-To

17. Double click on a display line and you are linked to the normal screen/form.

18. Provide a bar-coded Scheduled Receipts Report which could be used to drive Purchase Order Receiving.

19. Provide Purchase Requisition Management for Parts, as well as, Supplies, Furniture, etc.

a. Authoriry and sign-off levels.

b. Generate Purchase Order from Requisition.

20. Supplier Relationship Management