strategicinsight
does not change and what is lost is
testing,” Sedlak says. “You need to
test, debug, and retest. Once you go
live, you want to stop debugging and
move on to customer service.”
Barnes, too, is a firm believer in
testing, particularly stress testing,
which involves pushing a system to
its limits. He cites one customer
facility where stress and volume test-
ing revealed significant problems
with activities like scanning, label-
ing, and messaging that caused the
warehouse management software
and material handling systems to
crash. “If they had gone live, they
would have shut down for a week,” he
says. But since the issues were revealed in
the testing phase, the company was able to
resolve them before operations began.
POWER!
RELIABILIT Y
FLEXIBILITY
UTILITY
PRINTRONIX DELIVERS FIRST ENERGY STAR®
THERMAL BAR CODE PRINTERS
Printronix is proud to bring the first ENERGY STAR thermal bar code printers
to the market. The new T5000r ENERGY STAR thermal bar code and
SL5000r ENERGY STAR RFID printers are ideal for demanding duty cycles
and harsh environments.
Learn more online by visiting http://bit.ly/ptnxthermal
www.printronix.com | 1.800.665.6210
Engage the workforce. This step is
particularly important where an existing
workforce will make the transition to a
new system. “You’ve got to have buy-in
on the floor,” Sedlak says. He urges
involving line supervisors early in the
development process and training them
to train the line workers. “That’s especial-
ly true if you’re doing a renovation,” he
says. “That’s harder than bringing up a
greenfield project.”
Farmer maintains that preparing work-
ers for the transition to a new system
must be part of the process from the out-
set. “You always need a people-readiness
work stream,” he says. “If you don’t, you
will not meet the business case. You are
really doing change management, and
adoption of change is critical to success.”
Starovasnik makes a similar point. “The
physical changes—those are obvious. But
you’re also changing the lives of the peo-
ple who work for you.” He suggests engag-
ing supervisory personnel early in the
design process. “Their input can be
invaluable,” he says. “They understand
their customers’ needs. You want them to
see it not as a corporate design, but as
their design. It helps if you can establish a
sense of ownership that can be translated
to the front-line operators.”
Look ahead and look back. The end of
the project is just the beginning of the
operation. Farmer urges companies to
establish exactly how the operation will
function after it’s completed as part of their
planning process. In addition, he says, a
post-project review to identify lessons
learned can prove valuable in the future. ;
