You’ve invested heavily in IFS.
You’ve stabilized the system, and users are using the system.
Now is the time to start thinking about process improvements.
Real Numbers.
Process improvements have resulted in
- Increased output: A study of 137 machinery manufacturers found that output could be increased by 30.12% by improving efficiency, without requiring additional input. 1
- Increased earnings: One McKinsey report noted a case where a manufacturer increased earnings by 55% through data-driven process changes indicated by advanced analytics. 2
- Downtime reduction: Predictive maintenance and other efficiency measures could potentially reduce machine downtime by 30-50%. 3
If you’ve studied any process engineering, like Lean Six Sigma or Continuous Improvement, you know that small improvements to business processes can add up to great gains. For instance, in Lean Six Sigma, Rolled Throughput Yield (RTY) measures the overall efficiency of an entire business process. RTY is best measured with minor incremental changes in addition to overall high-level changes.
The war is won by winning small battles
One of the ways that you can embrace incremental process improvement in IFS ERP is to use its Business Process Automation (Workflows). Workflows in IFS are a great way to streamline processes, introduce automation, and reduce human manual interaction.
An IFS customer recently came to us from a heavily regulated industry. Before they shipped an order to a customer, they needed to make sure the delivery was to an approved state and included the necessary documentation.
A custom table was built that listed each state and associated the part and documentation needed.
Before IFS Cloud, the customer service team would need to manually check the approval and manually attach the necessary documentation.
We created a workflow that, upon shipment creation, check the table for approval, then attach the necessary documentation to the delivery.
The time savings were huge!
Workflows come in three types in IFS:
- Validation – stopping a user from performing a transaction within the system based on some criteria.
- User Interaction – prompts the user for additional information before executing a process.
- Process Enrichment – automates a transaction in the system.
Workflows have a built-in visual process designer that can be used to drag and drop.
Here are some examples to think about:
Curious how you could use workflows? Here are some workflows we recently created that you could use too:
- Automatically assigning users to companies and sites at user creation, saving system administration time during user setup.
- Calling the Google Address Verification API when a new address is created for a customer/supplier. Retrieving the verified address and updating the IFS record. Resulting in data accuracy and address
- Stopping a user from printing a sales quotation without a pricing approval over $1M.
- When a part is being repaired in the field and under warranty, automatically create an RMA to the issuing supplier. By the time the field technician returns to the office, the RMA is being processed.
Need Help?
We have a team of pros that can help you design and implement workflows so that you can save time – save money – take control.