You are told that you are better off replacing your IT system. Read this before going any further.
Here are some truths nobody will tell you.
- Vendors make more money if you replace your system.
- Systems you purchase include many unnecessary features you pay for.
- You will certainly have some specific needs that are not met by the system. To get the features to meet these needs, you will need to pay extra money.
- One day, the vendors will come back and tell you that you need to upgrade because they no longer support the version you purchased.
- Analysts such as Gardner, that review IT system vendors, are sponsored by the very vendors they review.
Tired of complex projects and spending too much money? There is a revolution and it is called “Proactive System Maintenance”. This revolution serves you, not the vendors. Instead of constantly spending your money on IT, you will have an extremely effective system, perfectly adapted to your needs. Your system can evolve with your growing, changing business so you will never need to replace it. “Proactive System Maintenance” comprises advanced techniques and tools drawn for human factors and system engineering. Together, these elements identify business needs before users are even aware of them.
“Instead of spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new ERP system with all the risk associated with a major project, Cognitive Group “Proactive System Maintenance” approach has enabled us to extend the life of our system with an investment of less than two months with one internal resource. Our technology now corresponds exactly to our business needs, is robust and will allow us to grow. ”
Bernard Caire, Vice President at DBM Reflex
Here is the story of DBM
a real life example of the amazing potential of “Proactive System Maintenance”.
DBM Reflex is the world leader in the manufacturing of electroforms and optical inserts for LED components. With customers in over 20 countries, their products are sold by the major players in the automotive industry, such as Ford, Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Toyota and Honda.
Not long ago, DBM’s internal billing system had major deficiencies. For instance, invoices were aligned with the manufacturing orders, but not purchase orders. As such, engineers had to manually convert customer purchase orders into manufacturing orders. Customers had great difficulty in reconciling purchase orders with invoices, which increased payment delays. Everyone involved in the process had to pay careful attention to ensure they were not missing anything.
DBM asked Cognitive Group to look at the internal billing system and make recommendations on the possibility of replacing the system.
Cognitive started by using an innovative approach based on human factors that focuses on field studies. A cognitive task analysis was done by observing all stakeholders who participate in the process, from the client negotiation right up to shipping. Then Cognitive analyzed the technology and the capacity of the organization. It quickly became apparent that it would be preferable to maintain the system rather than replace it.
Using the “Proactive Maintenance Approach”
A prototype of an interface was developed. This interface was designed to incorporate solutions for all the problems identified by Cognitive during the analysis phase. By using this interface, DBM now has an updated version of it’s pre-existing system. The new version of the billing system includes the following improvements;
- the ability to transform the feasibility study into purchase orders,
- the ability to generate both internal manufacturing orders and invoices directly from purchase orders,
- automation of calculations and reconciliations,
- the addition of a dashboard showing invoicing reminders and payment collection terms.
The software analysis was based on a prototype instead of complex documentation. This helped to ensure that changes were understood and implemented rapidly. After only six weeks of work, a new version was available to users on the staging system. Two weeks after the trial period, the system was put into production.
Result
“With the Cognitive Group’s ‘proactive maintenance approach’, we could address the major problems associated with our billing system.
“Not only that we have an invoice that exactly matches the customers orders, the system automates all manual entries, calculations and provide a comprehensive monitoring of the billing and payment delays.”
Bernard Caire, Vice President at DBM Reflex
All the star are now aligned for “proactive system maintenance”. The new approach in system analysis using human factors engineering that can be incorporated into day to day maintenance. The new system architecture that is not nested. The first system constructed to incorporate service oriented architecture, the ease of modern communication and cloud base technologies.