• the right personnel assignments and
• two no holds barred interactive sessions with key stakeholders.

Key Personnel

• Account Manager – Probably even before you’ve signed the deal, Relevant will have chosen an Account Manager (AM) with domain knowledge of your industry and inside-out familiarity with the options available to maximize the software’s performance for your specific needs. Account Managers work closely with your management and implementation teams from day one right through the early “live” phases of the implementation and act as your portal into all the professional resources of Relevant. AMs provide (or schedule other Relevant personnel to provide) the actual software installation, training in the use of support procedures, and system training. They will advise you on any potential enhancements or customizations.
  
  The PM manages the overall implementation and schedules, coordinates or supervises the activities of the implementation team, and continually communicates the project status to the organization.
  
  If you are implementing new software across multi-divisions or plants, Relevant may suggest that you also establish an Executive Committee to provide high level executive guidance, and to monitor both the implementation schedule and budget.
• Implementation Team – You’ll need to identify managers to represent each functional area. During all early stages of the implementation, these Super Users inform the AM of critical issues and make decisions for their individual departments. Again, it’s important that they be well respected individuals. The implementation team is foundational to the implementation plan, the conference room pilot, and user training.

Interactive Sessions

The Planning Phase of Accelerated Implementation provides two interactive forums designed to elicit first top management’s, and then, key line personnel’s, critical issues and concerns and to provide both with a basic understanding of the capabilities of the software you’ve chosen to deploy.

• Management Overview – During this one day, off-site seminar, your senior managers meet with the Relevant AM to walk through the company’s overall corporate vision, key operational objectives, and specific corporate objectives for the system. Relevant will listen to current procedures for Sales and operations planning, master scheduling, material requirements planning, capacity management, and integration with TQC, JIT, CAD/CAM and learn about your key log jams and revenue bleeders. As the day progresses, the group will review the basics of the Relevant system and begin to discuss specific ways in which the software will address issues. You’ll examine how the finance department works today and roadmap how information will flow through to finance after implementation. Lastly, the group will decide the role management will play in the implementation.
• Fundamentals and Concepts – This is a two-day, off-site seminar designed for the implementation team, department heads, first line managers, and others who will be involved in how the system will be applied and with its ongoing daily use. For many, this will be their first real exposure to the new system capabilities and constraints and often brings the first realization that the way some jobs are performed now may change. Change can be good, but it’s usually not welcomed. Relevant works hard to make this seminar an interactive give and take rather than a one-way information download.
  
  Topics covered include: product definitions and the engineering database, commodity codes, inventory control, sales and operations planning, forecasting and master scheduling, reporting, feedback and re-planning functions, material requirements planning, purchasing, shop floor execution, capacity management, financial aspects, and key prerequisites for a successful implementation.
  
  Seminars should be scheduled for twenty employees or less.

The final step in the Planning Stage starts as soon as the last seminar has been completed. In a series of meetings, the AM, PM, and Implementation Team meet to establish and document the expectations/goals of the project and to hammer out an initial implementation schedule, including the Conference Room Pilots, data conversions, Implementation Team and user training, and the cut over to live date. At least bi-weekly thereafter, this group will meet to assign new task responsibilities, review progress against the Implementation Plan/Schedule and identify/resolve problems. The PM updates and republishes the Implementation Plan/Schedule.