Welcome back!

In Improving Quality Management With Oracle Cloud Quality – Part 1,  we covered how Oracle Cloud quality is changing the game of managing quality data.

Specifically three pain points!

1. Reducing the need for tribal knowledge by requiring data collection at specific points in the supply chain
2. Not having the right resources notified of a non-conformance by leveraging automatic notifications
3. Trying to report from various systems and files to reporting from a central data point

All big wins…right?

Today we are going to look at the structure and FLEXIBILITY of collecting quality data.

Imagine that we are going to manufacture batteries… and before they leave the plant we must know two things…

1. Are the warning labels attached properly
2. Are the voltage outputs within a specific range

We are going to assume you have an item setup for the battery, let’s call it BATTERY123

Now, there are three critical elements we are going to define.

1. Collection Characteristics

Collection Characteristics are the specific points of data you want to collect.

We will define two of them for our example:

• Warning Label Attached 
• Voltage Output

We will dive a bit deeper into the details of Collection Characteristics in Part – 3 (in development!)

2. Collection Plans

Think of the Collection Plan as the place we store all of Collection Characteristics for a specific product.

Let’s call it….BATTERY123_QA

As you can see below we have a Collection Plan with characteristics on it.

3. The Inspection Point

At what point in the supply chain do you want this data collected?

The competition of manufacturing makes sense for our example.

That way it never makes it into a box OR out the door if it doesn’t meet the standards!

Tying it all together

In summary, we have built a Collection Plan, with multiple Collection Characteristics, that is required to be acted upon once the manufacturing process is complete! All stored and required by Oracle Cloud Quality!

That is a pretty big improvement from the old file folder that only a few long term employees know about and remember to use!

Next time we are going to take a look at the flexibility of Collection Characteristics and how they can work for any business, including your’s.

To learn about other way Oracle Cloud can help your business make sure to grab your free guide below!

Do you dread quality audits?

Maybe because you have to rehearse your speech to the auditors….

“X” area is managed on this spreadsheet

“Y” process is done because this employee has worked here for 17 years

“Z” homemade database generates the QA reports

OH….and the QA schedule is in this file folder

Then you see them do this

Not fun!

However, Oracle Cloud has delivered a robust solution to effectively manage quality cycles!

and…..maybe impress your auditors (no guarantees)

Now, let’s dive in!

No More Tribal Knowledge Required

Oracle Cloud Quality can be configured to require the collection of quality data at critical points in your supply chain.

• Receiving Inspection
• Cycle Counts
• Manufacturing
• Field Service Completions

Just to name a few!

Users MUST enter quality data where required or they can not proceed with the given task.

Effectively eliminating holes in your critical data collection.

Automate The Handling Of Non Conformance and Corrective Action

Configure Oracle Quality to ask for specific steps when non confirming quality data is recorded.

• Send Material To An MRB Location
• Mandate A Cycle Count
• Automatically Email Critical Team Members Of The Issue

What an excellent gain in efficiency.

All Of your Data In One Place

Data Collection and CAPAs are all being stored and executed in one place, making generating business intelligence much easier.

No more compiling spreadsheets or linking homemade databases

Leverage powerful the powerful reporting capabilities of the Cloud for all of your Quality data.

Once again Oracle Cloud is helping you to manage your business more effectively.

In Part 2 we are going to take a closer look at the data collection cycle.

To learn about other way Oracle Cloud can help your business make sure to grab your free guide below!

In Avoiding Customization Regret – Part 1 covered the first three critical steps

Train. Justify.Validate.

In Part 2 we covered making them part of the process, having a realistic ROI, and  making the user(s) own it. 

Over the past two decades I have seen the good, the bad , and the ugly when it comes to customization.

However, if you implement those six steps, there will be much less ugly and much more good.

Now, Let’s venture into long term ownership of customization and a few things your should know!

Keeps Detailed Records

Super Users change jobs

Development staff will leave the company

When it comes times to enhance, upgrade, re-implement the last thing you want is a list of customization’s that no one on staff has a clue how they work.

Assign an owner.

Make them keep excellent records of what it does and what they have changed.

You will NOT regret this due diligence.

It is NOT going away…

Once the users have it, they are not going to give it up.

…at least not easily!

No upgrade, new software, or from scratch implementation is going to convince them…

You have given them efficiency and ease of use.

That is a good thing, do NOT try to take it away and put them back in the stone age.

“Buy Nice, Not Twice”

Do it correctly and robustly the first time.

If you only delivery half of what was needed it will cost you 4X as much trying to fix it when it is live.

…and the users will not like you

Rinse and Repeat

Once they have one, they will want more.

Make them follow the process for every request.

Especially the ‘small ones’

Those are the ones that add up over time

Suddenly you have 1000’s of them clogging up your system

In summary

Customizing your ERP has gotten a bad rap over the years.

But it is generally not customization that is the issue.

It is the lack of due diligence around the whole process.

Follow the steps I have laid out for you and will see the benefits customization can bring to your organization.

AND

Make sure to grab our FREE implementation guide below for more resource saving tips for your implementation.

In Avoiding Customization Regret – Part 1 covered the first three critical steps

Train. Justify.Validate.

At this point we will assume those steps are done and we are moving along in the process.

Step 4 – Make Them Part Of The Process

The end user needs to be part of the design process.

The requirements need to be elicited from them.

They need to commit to the testing process.

Most important, they have to be willing to sign their name that the customization is what they want and it will provide benefit.

Step 5 – ROI

Yes, Return On Investment!

You should have at this point a scope of the work and an estimate on what it is going to take to complete it.

Yes, that means time translated to dollars.

Now, go back to Step 2 and bounce the efficiency gains against your cost.

Cost to build, test, migrate, train, upgrade, and maintain!

Yes, all of the costs immediate and future need to be considered.

Now, the dust will settle, and you will have clarity.

The 6K customization the users are screaming about will take 17 years to break even.

But the 300K request that has been put off for 6 years will be saving 2 million in labor every year.

Sound funny?

I promise it is not.

This is exactly how companies end with thousands of seemingly harmless enhancements, but never see a real benefit from any of them.

Step 6 – Make Them Sign It!

They asked for it, justified it, and tested it!

Now it is time for them to sign off on it.

Furthermore, if someone knows their name will be attached to it, they will help ensure it has benefit.

Accountability Always Works

There is nothing wrong with good old fashion accountability.

The world of customizing out of the box solutions is tricky business.

Over my career I have seen too much attention give to the loudest voice.

Without any process to vet basic need or cost.

It is easy to wake up a few years later with hundreds of customization done and no ones knows what over half of them do.

Having a basic process in place WILL save you tons of time and money on implementing, maintaining, and upgrading your ERP.

Make sure to grab our FREE implementation guide below for more resource saving tips for your implementation.

We have all been there.

Deciding to pull the trigger on a big (or sometimes small) customization

Yet it didn’t work out how it was intended

Take these three steps before ever considering a customization!

Step 1 – Make Them Get Good At It

Customization’s are frequently based on lack of exposure to the out of the box software.

If it isn’t understood well, it isn’t received well!

Train Them!

and train them well at what they already have!

If they STILL are asking for a change after that, proceed to Step 2

Step 2 – Make Them Justify It

Why can’t they use the current solution?

What is the deal breaking issue with it?

Ask for the quantifiable impact the current solution is having.

Users state efficiency as their main justification, which we can easily convert to dollars….

Which we will need to know for later steps!

Users often site lack of functionality as well

Furthermore, it is interesting how many customization requests tend to fall off when people are asked to justify them.

Step 3 – Don’t Take Their Word For It

Validate their justification.

Overstating their pain is common.

Get the data and validate it yourself.

If you can’t find the data, how did they come up with the justification themselves

Rapid decline in customization regret will happen when you follow these three steps!

Doing what is best for our companies is a top priority, but there is nothing wrong with taking your time when it comes to this.

Customization has far reaching impact into the future of mission critical systems, so don’t forget the first three steps.

Train. Justify. Validate.

In Part Two we are going to cover the next steps in the process and some of the biggest mistakes to AVOID!

If you are tired of trying to band aid your current system, maybe it time for a more robust solution.

Grab the free implementation guide below and find out what Oracle Cloud can do for you

Let’s face it…

Trying to source orders from multiple locations can be a real pain.

Thankfully the days of endless phone calls and spreadsheets are coming to end…

Thanks To Oracle Cloud

Now lets take a look at this slick graphical feature!

Cloud now provides a graphical view of inventory availability across multiple locations during the order entry process

No spreadsheets required

In the situation we need to fulfill the order from multiple warehouses it is literally just a few button clicks away.

First we tell the system to allow the fulfillment to be split across multiple warehouses.

Now the GPO engine will provide MULTIPLE fulfillment plans to you in just a matter of seconds!

At this point you choose what suits your needs best to deliver to your customer.

Just one of the many time savers Oracle Cloud has to offer.

If you are ready to start increasing efficiency and visibility make sure to grab your free implementation guide below!

Let’s face it – the days of employees staying long enough to memorize every SKU number a company sells, along with all of its variations are coming to an end.

Those folks still do exist; they impress me every time I meet them.

The reality is people are not staying at jobs anywhere near as long as they use to.

Newer generations are use to keyword based search engines.

This all makes the need for search engine like capability in the ERP space more important than ever.

Luckily for us, Oracle Cloud Applications has delivered a robust out-of-the-box solution.

Many ERPs of the past required people to know part or all of a SKU number, and generally use some type of wildcard character, but no more!

Let’s look at quick example…

Imagine you work for a distributor who sells cell phones as part of your offering.

Instead of remember all the various SKU numbers, all you have to do is type “Phone” in the keyword search field, and all of your SKUs that are phones will appear in the results.

Pretty cool, right?

Just think of the increased speed and accuracy of SKU based transactions, along with the savings on training new employees when you have a robust technology like this.

If you are ready to explore more of what Oracle Cloud Application has to offer make sure to sign up below.

Be honest…are you tired of the amount of effort it takes just to look at your basic queue of Sales Orders?

We all know the drill…

Download file “X”, upload that to internal system Y, then run macro Z to produce something that can actually be used by most of the organization.

It just seems like it is way harder than it should be.

But Oracle Cloud Applications are changing the game.

Offering a graphic view of order status, easily available to all users from executives to the folks on the front lines.

Now, let’s take a quick look at a common request…

“I need to see what orders are in danger of missing their ship date…”

Easy! The dashboard comes standard with an ‘Order In Jeopardy’ component making it easy see your current orders in danger of missing their date.

Simply drill into the field and see the list of orders and their key details.

Also, users can drill directly into the detail of each order.

Finally…you can export to Excel pain free!

In all my years of consulting, I have heard time and time again…

‘I want a one stop shop to easily see all my orders and be able to get the data into Excel quickly’

Ask no more, Oracle Order Management Cloud has delivered.

Be on the look out for more content on how Cloud is helping to improve business visibility.

Make sure to grab a copy of our free guide below!