SAP Implementation in only 2 months!

I am currently working on my 15th plant implementation of SAP. Needless to say, I have a lot of experience implementing SAP. I have developed a cookie-cutter approach to implementing SAP. It is the fastest hence most cost-effective method of implementing SAP.

The bonus is that it results in all of our manufacturing sites using the same business processes (for the most part). Which allows us to have a very lean IT team and it allows easy transfer of products and resources from one plant to another. Everyone in the entire organization speaks the same business process language which enables plants to easily lean on each other of help and easily collaborate with each other on new business process ideas. I believe this gives our company a competitive advantage. It allows us to be agile in our response to customer needs globally. It allows us to act as a single company at a global level rather than act as sister sites. It allows us to present a single face to our customers and our suppliers.

Our original SAP implementation took 8 months back in 1998. We had to consider our AS-IS processes and create our To-Be processes. We had to create all of our training documents and we had no experience with SAP.

Now, when we have an acquisition, we roll-out SAP to the new company in 8 weeks. The exception was Brazil that took three months and some external consulting because we were not familiar with the Brazilian localization. But I have heard of no other company that has implemented SAP in Brazil in only 3 months.

I have shared my approach with companies such as KLA Tencor and IGT. People are amazed and skeptical, but we have proved it time and time again. In my opinion, there is no better way.

Companies / People believe that their business processes are too different to use a cookie-cutter approach. But the fact is that the basic Order-to-Cash and Procure-to-Pay processes are essentially the same. These are the processes that are core to SAP. Our company offers both manufacturing and services. Therefore, if we acquire a company that offers products or services, or both, our approach works.

I estimate that we save over $500K / plant with this approach. When you consider all of the benefits, the synergies of having your plants run the same business processes world-wide, the savings is far greater than $500K / plant. The savings on SOX audits alone is significant because all of the plants around the world are on a single instance of SAP. Therefore the IT Controls audit and the audit of all of the application controls is covered at corporate. The plants do not have to be audited individually.

A 2 month implementation is not easy. It is extremely draining on the individuals involved from both IT and the business. But it is achievable. It is repeatable. We are only a few weeks away from proving it once more. I will let you know how it goes.

If you have any questions, please feel free to post them. I will respond as my schedule allows.