What fabricators learned from their ERP installations

The best teachers of metal fabricating lessons are other metal fabricators. Sarah Richards, president and CEO, Jones Metal Inc., Mankato, Minn., and Todd Ludlow, Ludlow Manufacturing Inc., Waukegan, Ill., learned some lessons about enterprise resource planning (ERP) software implementation that other fabricators are sure to appreciate.

Both fab shops have worked hard to eliminate the paper-based traveler from the shop floor. They also simultaneously took up the challenge to upgrade to a new ERP software package that could provide the IT muscle to organize front-office activities and feed the shop floor real-time updates on what needed to be produced and where work-in-process was located.

When she joined the family company almost 10 years ago, Richards was charged with learning as much as she could about the fabricating business. As a result, she asked a lot of questions, and one of the most common was “How do you know what to do next?” What she learned is the answer to that question typically relied on what was written on the traveler that accompanied the job and where the lift truck was. Needless to say, a day in the plant was filled with a lot of plantwide pages for lift trucks and trying to chase down paper travelers that needed to be updated.

Ludlow had the opportunity to go to Europe and see shops truly operating in paperless environments. When he returned to the U.S., the paper packets stuck out like a pallet of parts that have been sitting in an aisle for a week. They were especially noticeable when doors were open and winds blew the routers off the skids.

Jones Metal Fabricating moved to ERP software from Global Shop Solutions and Ludlow Manufacturing implemented OmegaCube ERP software in the past couple of years as they looked to modernize their shop management efforts. Following are some of the lessons they learned.

Get Your Processes Straight Before Moving Forward

Richards said that advice actually came from another ERP software developer that recommended Jones Metal understand what they needed their ERP software to do before they installed one expecting it to solve all the company’s pain points once it went live. That meant documenting processes, from how jobs were moved between workstations to how engineering changes were handled.

“After about three years of really working hard to make improvements and understand our ERP system at the time, we figured out what we wanted to do and how we wanted to do it,” Richards said. “Combining that with our pursuit of ISO 9001:2015 certification that we got in January 2017, we were really on the right path.”

Avoid Customizing the Software If You Can

“The one thing that I will say is watch how much you customize your ERP system. It can tie your hands very quickly,” Ludlow said.

Customization often results from a fabricator wanting software to match specifically what it does. In doing so, Ludlow explained the fabricator may get a short-term reward, but a long-term headache. Simply put, software updates work well when modules remain as the original developers intended. Things get a little tricky with modules that have been altered from the original code.

Richards said that a fab shop can’t expect to find something that will match its operations perfectly. It should look for something that is as close as possible.

“Remember, you don’t want to build it the way you had your old one,” she said. “You want to look at it from a completely different perspective in terms of trying to fit your processes into what the software offers, instead of vice versa.”

One of the things that drew Ludlow Manufacturing to its prior ERP software was that the company knew from early interviews with the software developer and some other metal fabricators that the ERP system was going to integrate flawlessly with its lasers. The metal fabricator didn’t anticipate problems with the company’s accounting software, and that’s when a lot of patches were created in the ERP package to make that front-office integration work.

“It caused a lot of issues,” he said. “Our accounting was down for a week basically.”

Richards said Jones Metal went through its own issues with patches on its old ERP system. It had a short-lived IT guy, a whiz kid who developed little fixes that got the software up and running when there was a problem. But all of those fixes often collapsed as larger software updates were made.

Frustrations grew until Jones Metal management decided to outsource its IT to a third party. Now Jones Metal stays on top of maintenance and updates, avoiding quick fixes in favor of improvements and updates recommended by the software developer.

Take the Time to Train People

The move to another ERP system is not an easy transition, as almost any shop that

has lived through it will attest. Getting people involved as early as possible in preparing for the transition is key, according to Richards.

“We prepared for about a year beginning with communicating what was happening, and then for about six months we started training our operators,” she said. “We knew when we went live, we were never going to print again.”

The challenge in such a transition is not necessarily the new user interfaces that come with the new ERP software or the new fields that operators need to fill in. It’s the company culture. Many times it’s hard to get beyond the way things have always been done.

“We had a lot of people to train, and it’s difficult when some people don’t want to change,” Ludlow said.

But both Ludlow and Richards said they pushed forward because everyone understood what they wanted to accomplish. The goal was made evident to everyone.

But some habits die hard. For instance, some press brake operators might hold on to the concept of batch production even if the production schedule says to have multiple tooling setups during the day, some of which may be repeats of earlier jobs. A press brake operator who hates setups and likes making parts wants to have the one setup and produce all of the parts required for the shift, even if downstream operations may not be ready for all of those parts. That’s why overall goals associated with the change in processes (such as eliminating unwanted WIP) and software have to be explained to everyone.

Find the Skeptic to Lead the Questioning

Obviously, people that interact with any ERP system should be involved in discussions before the software implementation. However, Ludlow suggests having the most informed skeptic on the team as the lead inquisitor when interviewing potential software vendors. That person what’s needed from the job shop perspective, and he or she isn’t going to be shy about drilling down to find out what the software can and cannot do.

“One of my guys was skeptical when it came time for evaluating ERP software, but he’s really smart and honest,” Ludlow said. “We looked at a lot of companies, but when we finally decided on what we wanted, I wouldn’t say he was smiling, but he cracked a smile because we found something that was going to work.”

Those initial thoughts were proved out with extensive demo testing and asking for references. Ludlow said that it couldn’t find another metal fabrication shop that was using the software in the way that it wanted to use it, but they did find a benchmark. It just happened to be a plastic part manufacturer.

“They weren’t quite as sophisticated as what we wanted to be, but at least it gave us a really good example not too far away from what we did,” Ludlow said. “We knew then it could work for us.”

So why be so skeptical? Richards said that even the most honest salesperson is going to be so wrapped up in selling their own software that their excitement for the entire scope of modules may actually overshadow the real needs of the fabricator. That’s why it makes sense for the fabricator to know its processes inside and out, so that the shop personnel can spot what modules are needed and put the brakes on what is not necessary to accomplish short-term goals.

Test the Software Thoroughly

A fabricator is going to want to run its new ERP software in parallel with its older system for a specified amount of time. That way the shop can confirm that the software is working as it should.

Don’t install the software and leave no alternative should the new ERP system fail to deliver what it should, according to Ludlow.

“Don’t rip that Band-Aid off,” he said.

Richards agreed.

“If something’s not working, you suffer, and everything stops. It comes to a halt,” she said. “You want your people to maintain that flow.”

And the Results?

Ludlow said his company, unlike many in the industry, employs a lot of younger workers, and the new paperless environment they are working toward makes sense for the organization. These new faces are energized by working with new fabricating technology, such as modern press brakes, that provides animated job instructions and easy access to the information that used to be part of the paper travelers. They want to work in a modern manufacturing facility.

From a practical standpoint, the new ERP software puts an end to employees’ expeditions for lost parts, he said. Welders no longer wonder what happened to the parts that were dropped off 10 minutes ago because they happen to be looking in the wrong place. The software notifies them where parts are in the production process and where they should be headed next.

Richards said that Jones Metal has been able to boost its quality effort since implementation of the ERP software. Operators are now doing their own inspections on first articles, and it helps that they can quickly access backup material on nearby monitors.

“I believe strongly that one reason is because of the detail that’s available to the operator now,” she said.

She also echoed Ludlow’s feelings about the end of the shop safari, where employees hunt for parts. Machine operators know what’s coming and where parts are heading. Sales folks know where parts are when they get calls from customers. Schedulers know the status of planned and expedited orders. People can do their jobs instead of heading out on a metal part expedition.