Develop a realistic schedule. “You can have problems
with a schedule that is too short or too long,” Sedlak warns.
“If it’s too short, you risk looking like idiots—you have to
run and gun and put pressure on the whole organization. If
it’s too long, people lose focus,” he says. “It is really critical
to keep momentum going,” adds Bowes.
So how much time does the typical systems integration
project require? Sedlak says that for a new facility, a sched-
ule normally runs about 18 months. Retrofits are somewhat
quicker. Executing a major project in an existing building
will take four to six months, with planning for six
months prior to that, says Dean Starovasnik,
seven or eight figures, that needs to sustain you for seven to
10 years, so you are really pushing executives in sales, mar-
keting, and finance to think out that long,” he says. “What will
your growth and your channels look like? We like to start
with that end in mind and build back to what’s required for
the next three to five years, with an expansion plan to add to
the system without compromising day-to-day business.”
Plan, then plan some more. That might seem obvious,
but what’s often overlooked is the breadth of detail
that successful project implementation requires.
“The most successful projects are those in which
companies invest the time in planning,” says
Bowes, whose company provides consulting and
engineering services for manufacturing and dis-
tribution. “What we’ve seen is that success is 50
percent planning and 50 percent execution. You
get in trouble when you try to do things too fast.”
Jim Barnes, president and CEO of supply chain
consulting firm EnVista, says, “First and foremost, you
have to define the detailed functional and technical
specifications that create the scope of the project. You
find the devil in the details.”
Once you’ve reached agreement on the project’s scope,
the next step is to identify what resources will be required.
“Make sure you have an adequate budget,” advises Pat
Sedlak of Sedlak Consulting, a firm that works with clients
like adidas on major distribution center projects. What
companies sometimes forget is that the budget has to cover
more than just capital equipment and integration costs, he
says. You also have to factor in the cost of making the tran-
sition from existing systems and “extras” like anti-fatigue
mats and floor sweepers—expenses that can add up quick-
ly. Bowes of Peach State adds that the budget should include
the costs of maintenance contracts and spare parts invento-
ries as well.
Farmer notes that the same kind of attention to detail
should be extended to staffing. Early on, managers must
assign specific responsibilities to individuals for the various
segments of the project. “If you don’t create ownership by
work streams, something will fail,” he insists. At the same
time, all of the parts need to be coordinated. “Where you
fail is when someone says, ‘I’m going to put in a new mate-
rial handling system’ without knowing how it will impact
the warehouse management system or people readiness.
The overall project documentation must show where each
work stream touches any other.”
It might seem that a plan developed for a new facility
would have a lot more moving parts than a retrofit. But
Bowes says that’s not always the case. Planning for a retrofit
can be more difficult and complex than planning for a new
building since installation must proceed in tandem with
existing operations, he explains. “The tactical planning is
even more important,” he adds. “You simply cannot com-
promise a facility’s ability to serve customers.”
Organize the right team—and give it
authority. “The first step is setting up the proper structure,” Farmer says. That includes putting
together a team and developing a communications
plan at the outset. “You cannot accomplish a systems
integration project without the proper structure.”
Bowes, like other experts, says the team must
include representatives from a number of functional areas—finance, marketing, operations, IT, and distribution, among them.
But putting together the right team is only half the chal-
lenge, says Barnes. You also need the right project manager.
“What makes or breaks these projects is good project man-
agement, not only by the systems integrator but on the
client side,” he says. The project manager must be a great
leader, one who can keep the team united and focused, as
well as a great communicator, he adds. “You need to be able
to communicate upward both good news and bad.”
To be effective, the project manager must be given
enough leeway to carry out the task. But that doesn’t always
happen, says Barnes. “They often have the responsibility but
not the authority.”
Sedlak adds that the role of project manager should be
treated as a full-time job. “These change programs cannot
be accomplished with half-time people,” he says.
Communicate constantly. That’s especially important
if a part of the project goes off schedule. “If you’re running
behind, don’t put off communicating that,” Farmer says.
“You don’t know if that impacts another part.”
And communication must be timely, particularly when
things go amiss. “Bad news does not get better with age,”
Barnes says.
Honor the schedule, but don’t rush to the finish. Even
the best laid plans can go awry, leading to holdups and
delays. Once a schedule slips, it’s tempting to compress
some of the final testing and debugging and put the system
to work. That’s a mistake, the experts agree. “Over and over
again, we see people lose time up front, but the end date
