Implementation Consulting Services

Verticent's Professional Services Organization (PSO) is a key component to your enterprise resource planning ERP implementations success. Verticent PSO provides unmatched industry experience, product knowledge and proven consulting methodologies to meet complex business information requirements and to maximize the return on your software investment. Industry/application certified consultants help with your ERP implementation. For advanced concepts, such as material requirements planning (MRP), APICS' MRP best practices are utilized. The Verticent team will be there to help you meet your objectives.

Technical Skills and Business Experience

Our consultants are industry experts with years of real-world, business-related experience such as MRP best practices. These skills-when teamed with our vast array of cross-industry systems, technical expertise and environmental experience-combine to form a powerful and effective software ERP implementation resource. Our application design and project management expertise eliminates the trial and error method of ERP implementation-ensuring that your solutions are implemented efficiently and in a timely manner.

Focused on Client Partnering

Verticent consultants are committed to a methodology that centers on partnering with your staff at a level that is most appropriate for meeting your business requirements. This allows us to customize our approach to your needs by blending the business-specific knowledge held by your people with our own product and systems knowledge. We both meet our objectives in the ERP implementations success.

Our Methodology

Every organization has its own set of unique business objectives, resources constraints and time frames. And Verticent has discovered that a phase-by-phase approach with well-timed checkpoints is the best method for successfully implementing software at most organizations. There are six phases that should be followed to achieve maximum benefits from an enterprise application software solution. Within each phase, specific steps and integration checkpoints help ensure project costs and scope remain on target.

PHASE ONE – PLANNING

This is the time to obtain executive buy-in on the ERP implementation project. When upper management supports the project from Phase One, the ERP implementations success rate greatly improves. During the Planning Phase, you also must review and document internal business processes to determine if the processes should be revised in order to capitalize on the full potential of the solution.

Successful planning involves:

• Gaining executive buy-in
• Defining business processes
• Developing an initial project plan
• Analyzing requirements, risks and recommended solutions
• Reviewing technical requirements
• Developing a resource plan for installation, design, training and testing

PHASE TWO – ANALYSIS AND DESIGN

During the Analysis and Design Phase, you should establish a team of key project personnel to remain consistent throughout the entire ERP implementation project. Team members will become experts on the Verticent solution and will communicate with PSO team members to understand implementation methodologies.

Analysis and Design Phase steps include:

• Installing hardware and software
• Training the core project team
• Conducting a design session to match business process requirements
• Developing process flow and identifying process changes
• Developing a data migration plan

PHASE THREE – SETUP AND BUILD

Once the Analysis and Design Phase is complete, the setup and build begins. The Setup and Build Phase provides detailed design documents, a detailed project plan and a list of any documented issues or risks.

The Setup and Build Phase should result in:

• Designs for all aspects of the solution
• Complete understanding of the project’s scope, integration issues and potential risks
• Test plan and scripts to ensure all business processes are properly executed

PHASE FOUR – BUSINESS SIMULATION

The Business Simulation Phase involves loading preliminary data to test newly defined business processes in preparation for cut-over to the new Verticent solution.

This phase involves:

• Testing new business practices and obtaining user acceptance that business processes are accurately represented (Example: MRP best practices)
• Loading test data resulting from data migration and ensuring all data mapping is accurate and complete
• Testing the go-live, cut-over process
• Validating the database
• Training end-users
• Reviewing project plans and status

PHASE FIVE – ROLL-OUT

Your preparation pays off. After thorough planning, design and testing, the Roll-out Phase takes the Verticent solution from formal testing to a live environment. During system roll-out, you're trained on the software solution and any remaining issues are resolved. Then, the solution is moved to the live processing step.

The Roll-out Phase should deliver:

• Validation of processes and procedures
• End-user proficiency
• Verification of a contingency plan
• Live processing in the new applications

PHASE SIX – REVIEW

Finally, the Review Phase enables you to analyze your comfort level with the processes and the overall solution. It also allows PSO members to further analyze your operations to determine if further refinements can be made to the solution. Now, the entire solution should be assessed for optimal performance tuning.

The Review Phase should deliver:

• A properly tuned system
• Formal recommendations to client management
• A high-level project plan for any future phases

 

If you are interested in Verticent services, please contact us today.