Company Name
Primary Company Contact for this Assessment
Contact Phone Number
Contact email
Instructions:This Assessment should be primarily completed with input from each functional department that needs data with assistance from the IT organization if possible. A cross-functional team from the business functions should complete, or at least review and form a consensus on this tool to provide the most value from the analysis. If any of the questions are not clear, please refer to the User Guidelines at the bottom of this survey.
Describe your business:
- Describe what is working well for your business:
- Describe any business pain you are experiencing (what keeps you awake at night?):
- What can’t you do that you must or would like to do?
- What are your organizational rules or drivers?
- Describe important internal influences on your business:
- Describe any important external influencers (i.e., FDA, DOD, etc.)
- Rate your company’s ability to accept change
Excellent__ Good__ Fair__ Poor__
- What are your annual sales?
- Have you determined what data you need to collect in real time to run your business?
- What are your desired customer service levels?(Ex: On Time Delivery)
- What are your customer service goals?
- What is your company’s production and order fulfillment approach?
(Select all that apply)
- Job Shop__Discrete__Process__Project__Repetitive__
- Mass Customization__Engineer to Order__Make to Stock__
- Configure to Order__Assemble to order__Make to Order__
- Use of subcontracting__Other (please describe)______
- What is the user community’s opinion of the IT systems in respect to supporting the business?
- Excellent__Good__Fair__Poor__ NA____
- What is the IT community’s opinion about the quality of the IT systems?
- Excellent__Good__Fair__Poor__
- Describe any important technology drivers:
- What is your current financial accounting system?
- How do you schedule manufacturing today? Does it work as you would like?
- Do you have a preferred technology platform? (Ex:Based upon your existing technology investments and/or current staffing competence, for instance, that would factor heavily with staying with this technology?
- How many users in your company need real time information? Do they have this at their fingertips today?
- What is the mix of employees (FTE) in hardware and networks versus applications?
- What are the IT related initiatives in your strategic plan?
- What % of your systems isin-house developed with custom development?
- What % of your processes is performed manually as opposed to via IT systems processes?(Automated vs Manual)
- What is the state of your processes? Are they an obstacle to achieving the company’s goals e.g., cost reduction, better customer service or sales growth?
- Excellent__Good__Fair__Poor__
- Do you have any unusual Data Conventions that could create obstacles to using packaged software?
- Yes__No__
- Do you have any hosted, cloud or SAAS based solutions now?
- Yes__No__
- Would you consider cloud or hosted solutions in the future?
- Yes__No__
- Are you considering a new ERP system?
- Yes__No__
- Are you considering a new MRP System?
- Yes___ No___
- Are you considering a new CRM system?
- Yes__No__
- If yes to question 28 or 29, what are your concerns or obstacles to making a decision?
- Would you like a list of potential ERP or CRM software vendors and implementation partners?
- Yes__No__
- What questions or concerns were not addressed in this assessment tool?
User Guidelines
- Business and Operational Related Questions
- Describe your business- Could be the company’s mission statement, or as described on a website, or other, 25 words or more on what the company is about.
- Describe what is working well for your business- Talk about your good decisions, the things that must be retained and understood as we analyze your business
- Describe any business pain you are experiencing (what keeps you awake at night?)- The single issue that requires your attention. Lesser issues and concerns will be described below
- What can’t you do that you must or would like to do? – This can be any problem, not just IT related. If this question is redundant with #3 above just indicate see #3.
- What are your organizational rules or drivers?- Organizational drivers describe principles, philosophies or pressures (internal or external) that you have committed to and guide how and why you work. Things such as “we promise customer delivery within 2 days of order receipt” which is a market differentiator that you impose on yourself, or is part of an agreement with a customer. Others might be a commitment to “100% defect free products – no exception” or commitment to “10% revenue growth per year”.
- Describe important internal influences on your business- Internal influences could be a heavy non-English speaking workforce, or a predominance of highly skilled/trained engineering employees, or an extremely dusty environment, for example.
- Describe any important external influencers (i.e., FDA, DOD, OSHA, etc.). Include reference to standards if known.
- Rate your company’s ability to accept change- A significant predictor of a company’s ability to successfully change is to look at its past. Think about large projects, for example new product introductions, moving to a new facility, implementing systems across functional areas for ideas on how to respond.
- What are your annual sales? (if you do not want to answer sales revenue please enter the cost of IT as a % of sales)- In this question we are evaluating whether you are getting good value from your IT spending. Also try to consider and include your “hidden IT budget”, in other words IT work that is performed by a functional area (e.g., planning has a forecasting tool they purchased or developed that is not under IT’s budget). It is not uncommon for 50% of IT costs to be managed and spent outside of IT’s knowledge and/or control. The total cost of IT will provide us more information about your situation and opportunities.
- What are your annual inventory turns?- Total sales divided by inventory investment, e.g., annual sales of $3m / $1M in inventory investment = 3 turns.
- What are your customer service levels?- There are many acceptable ways to calculate your company’s performance to your customer and this analysis does not demand a specific approach. In the absence of an existing approach use % of orders that ship complete and on time. If this results in unacceptably low service levels use % of line items (on an order) that ship complete on time.
- What are your customer service goals? - Referring to #11 above, what would you like your Service Level %’s to be (using the same formula)?
- What is your company’s production and order fulfillment approach?- This question is critical to understanding the type of manufacturing, planning, order promising, customer service approaches that define the business. It is not uncommon for the language used within a business, or an industry, to vary and it is also quite possible that more than one manufacturing mode is present in the business.
- What is the user community’s opinion of the IT systems in respect to supporting the business? - This is a user’s opinion of the alignment, or usefulness of systems to achieving the business objectives, not so much a qualitative opinion of the technical competence of the systems. We will ask IT for the technical opinion below.
- IT and Process Related Questions
- What is the IT community’s opinion about the quality of the IT systems? - This is to capture IT’s opinion of the quality of the systems, not necessarily the alignment to the business, but consider opinion in this area as well.
- Describe any important technology drivers-Part of a requirement by your primary customer (an Aircraft manufacturer) requires that you have the ability to support their “3-D” blueprints and agree to provide digital production information that includes electronic measurements, QC findings & signatures.
- What is your annual IT budget?- In this question we are evaluating whether you are getting good value from your IT spending. Also try to consider and include your “hidden IT budget”, in other words IT work that is performed by a functional area (e.g., planning has a forecasting tool they purchased or developed that is not under IT’s budget) or by an outside contractor or service such as ADP. It is not uncommon for 50% of IT costs to be managed and spent outside of IT’s knowledge and/or control. The total cost of IT will provide us more information about your situation and opportunities.
- Do you have a preferred technology platform? (i.e., based upon your existing technology investments and/or current staffing competence or future plans - This question touches on the types of operating systems, or other factors that are now or in the future in your company’s direction. For example MS Sequel, or Oracle, or PIC, or ____?
- How many employees, or FTE in IT? - This question is to determine the amount of your expense in people vs. hardware, software, networks, etc., again geared to understanding your environment. If you do not have FTE (Full Time Employees) numbers available, estimate the number of hours spent on IT throughout the organization.
- What is the mix of employee (or FTE) in hardware and networks versus applications? Understanding the allocation of IT expenses could lead to insights on best IT related paths going forward
- What are the IT related initiatives in your strategic plan?- What significant projects are underway or scheduled to support the company’s strategy? In an IT strategy sense, each goal in a business strategy may have one or more IT related initiatives that enable the strategy. In other words, all IT projects have a strategic context.
- What % of your systems have been in-house developed with custom development? -Some companies believe only custom, in-house developed software fits the company’s unique business model. Other company’s believe that packaged software can successfully be used to meet the company’s needs. This question is directed at identifying your company’s perceptions (to date) about custom systems.
- What % of your processes are performed manually as opposed to via IT systems processes? - This question is attempting to identify how many manual processes, that could be automated, are in place. Some examples: Are your inventory balances maintained on paper records, or via Excel spreadsheets? Are your customer account lists maintained on paper or on Excel or other non-integrated types of record keeping? If you answered yes to a process being on paper or in Excel, we would regard that as a 100% manual system. If one was on a system, e.g., Quickbooks, and the other on paper or Excel, we would regard that as 50% manual.
- What is the state of your processes? Are they an obstacle to achieving the company’s goals (e.g., cost reduction, better customer service or sales growth)? - Many companies recognize that their processes, whether manual or on IT systems are not ideal, and therefore correctly feel that their inefficient processes are obstacles to success in reducing costs, achieving higher customer service levels or growing the business.
- Do you have any unusual Data Conventions that could create obstacles to using packaged software?– Often, unusual data conventions are the reasons companies have stayed with in-house manual systems. Equally often, unusual data conventions result in the use of manual processes even where purchased software is in place. Modifying data conventions (in IT-speak Master Data Management or MDM) becomes a significant driver of the development and maintenance of systems, whether they are custom developed in-house systems or heavily customized packaged software products. Overtime, it becomes a risk factor for the business as well as a limitation for achieving company goals and objectives.
- Do you have any hosted, cloud or SAAS based solutions now? - Hosted usually applies to IT services provided to your company by a company or resource that maintains IT systems you own. Cloud and SAAS come in many forms but ADP payroll services are a common application. Others could include Salesforce.com or other CRM solutions.
- Would you consider any hosted or cloud based solution in the future? - There is a growing trend to hosted and cloud based solutions. The IT model has become mature and there are many cost and service level-effective solutions available. Companies seeking ways to lower IT costs should consider these offerings.
- Are you considering a new ERP? - The most common, and arguably important, system for a manufacturing company is Enterprise Resource Planning. It ties operations, finance and engineering systems and information in a single system of record.
- Are you considering a new CRM?- Customer Relationship Management provides tools for sales and marketing that should enable more sales, more information about customers, and information management needs to make decisions about products and customers. Oftentimes, CRM is available by the ERP vendor which has advantages if the CRM product has sufficient functionality.
- If yes to question #28 or 29 above, what are your concerns or obstacles to making a decision?
- Please indicate if you would like a list of potential ERP or CRM software vendors and implementation partners. Yes or no
- What questions or concerns were not addressed in this assessment tool?
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