How to be a successful MES implementation consultant

After several months of all-night efforts, the requirements of MES were finally established, the workflow was standardized, and the system configuration was completed. When MES system is about to go online gradually, enterprise users suddenly change their requirements, don't want to do this, and put forward new requirements.

For MES implementation consultants, it is like a bolt from the blue, which is what all MES consultants fear most. Because sometimes, the user is just a simple sentence, but for the adjustment of the system, the workload is very large.

1. Demand change: adaptation or rejection?

From the establishment of MES project, demand is the pain point of MES implementation consultant. With the in-depth understanding of MES and the change of project environment, many factors inside and outside the enterprise may make customers' demand for MES constantly change. If these demand changes cannot be effectively handled, the project implementation progress will be adjusted again and again, the production date will be postponed again and again, and the morale of project members will be lower and lower, which will directly lead to the failure of MES project.

Demand change should be the right of customers, but it is also the difficulty of implementing consultants. If you really want to change, of course, it must meet the needs of customers. The problem is that we can't let the power of change be abused and spoil some insignificant changes into blatant changes. For example, I used to be a "modest type" in a MES project, and my customers were very satisfied with the changes they proposed, regardless of size. However, the progress of the project is very long and the project has been postponed again and again. In contrast, on another project, I seem to be a bit "overbearing". Most of the demand changes put forward by customers are ignored, and customers are not very satisfied. However, the progress of the project is well controlled and can basically be completed on schedule.

According to the latter "overbearing" approach, the customer's requirements are ignored and implemented according to the original requirements and plans. Probably because there is no user's participation, the MES system is far from the user's demand, which leads to the failure of acceptance and the failure to receive the final payment, which harms the company's interests. For customers, not meeting the demand is also a waste of investment. In fact, if the customer is not satisfied, the project will not succeed, and the hard work of implementing the consultant will only end up as "no credit, only hard work".

But according to the previous "modest" approach, completely listen to the opinions of customers, will customer satisfaction be high? Actually, not necessarily. Due to the change of demand, the workload will increase greatly, and there may even be a lot of ineffective labor. Moreover, the frequently changing demand will also lead to the decline of the realization quality, leaving many hidden dangers. Therefore, blindly accommodating users will delay the progress, change the implementation plan again and again, and the more changes, the more tired the morale, the more dissatisfied the company and the more anxious the users are. In the end, the implementation consultant will find that this project has become an "impossible task".

2. Why can't the demand change be finished?

In the process of MES implementation, the implementation consultant will face a series of various tests. The most troublesome thing is probably the frequent changes in demand. The change of customer demand is an inherent feature of MES project and an inevitable fact. There are many forms of demand changes, such as customers temporarily changing their minds, increasing or decreasing the project budget, and changing customers' demand for functions. It will lead to risks such as cost increase and schedule delay in MES implementation, and the later the change, the greater the risk.

According to the actual experience of many MES implementation projects that the author participated in, the proliferation of demand changes is very terrible, especially in the late stage of project implementation, customers constantly put forward suggestions to modify the handed-over MES system, and sometimes even the newly completed changes require customers to change back or change to another model. There are more and more changes in requirements, and the implementation consultant can only cope with them. "bottomless pit" is the same feeling of most implementation consultants in MES project.

As the undertaker of the project, the implementation consultant will use limited resources to complete the project with good quality and quantity within the specified time, and the ultimate goal is to satisfy the customers and the company. But satisfying customers means satisfying customers' endless needs? Let's analyze the root cause of demand change:

(1) the contract was signed hastily, without really understanding the customer's needs.

When signing the contract, the customer's demand was not taken seriously, which led to the unclear description of the demand and brought confusion to the later implementation. In order to get customers to sign contracts quickly, MES sales consultants often make hasty decisions and unilaterally agree with customers' demands. When customers put forward new requirements, it is often the sales consultant who sees that "should" is only a small modification with little impact and directly agrees to change it.

The key to this problem is that the contract is not well signed. Before signing the contract, there is no clear demand, and the process of demand change is not written into the contract. If the customer's requirements are clearly defined in the contract, there is no need to change the requirements frequently later. Defining the scope of the project requirements when signing the contract can lay a solid foundation for the implementation of various tasks in the future.

② During the investigation, we didn't deeply understand the customer's needs.

In the stage of demand investigation and analysis before MES goes online, in-depth communication between project team members and customers is one of the key stages to reduce frequent demand changes. However, due to the misunderstanding between the two sides, it is usually difficult to communicate with each other. What's more, the implementation consultant only worked out the implementation plan according to a few descriptive and summative words put forward by the users, but didn't really dig and work out the implementation plan according to the customers' needs. When the customer is hot-headed or the leader puts forward new requirements, the implementation consultant often can't tell the real needs of the customer from the gold-plated needs. If the project team does not fully understand the details of the customer's requirements, the two sides will have different understandings of the requirements, which will lead to the problems exposed when the MES system is handed over, and the customer can only propose requirements changes frequently.

③ There is no clear requirement change management process.

Without a clear management process of demand change, demand change will become rampant. Not all changes need to be modified, and not all changes need to be modified immediately. The purpose of requirement change management is to decide what kind of changes need to be modified and when.

For example, the style of MES interface, you can not modify it first, or plan the modification time to optimize it later. In addition, there is no strict control process for the modification of core modules, and some small requirements seem to be light workload, but in fact, it takes a long time for implementation consultants and development consultants to complete these details that sales consultants or customers have not considered.

④ Failing to let customers know the cost of changing demand.

Failure to assess the impact of change is the root cause of the surge in demand change. Change comes at a price, so it is necessary to evaluate the cost of change and its impact on the project and let customers know the consequences of demand change. If the customer doesn't know the cost of the requirement change, it is difficult to understand the hard work of the implementation consultant. In the process of evaluating the cost, you can ask the customer to make a judgment together: "I can modify it, but can you accept the consequences?" .

3. How to effectively control demand changes?

The change of demand has an important influence on the success or failure of the project. We can neither refuse the customer's demand for change nor blindly accommodate the customer, so we must control the demand change before implementing it. For example, authorization, audit, evaluation and confirmation, as well as tracking and verification during implementation. There is a popular saying: "The purpose of demand change control is not to control the occurrence of changes, but to manage changes and ensure that changes are carried out in an orderly manner."

Changes in users' needs are always inevitable, so we should accept and control users' needs with a positive attitude, not just complain. Effective measures should be taken to deal with the frequent changes in customer demand, avoid the spread of the situation, and prevent customers from forming the habit of random changes.

① Contract constraint

The influence of demand change on MES implementation is obvious to all. Therefore, when signing a contract with users, some relevant clauses can be added, such as limiting the time for users to propose demand changes, stipulating what changes can be accepted, rejected or partially accepted, and stipulating that change management processes must be implemented when demand changes occur.

Although it is difficult to define every requirement accurately at the beginning of the MES project contract, it is useless to rely on the contract alone, but the binding force of the contract can not be ignored. There is a joke that many sales consultants joked that they were all from the Qing government. Why the Qing government? One of the characteristics of the Qing government was that there were too many treaties that humiliated the country.

② Establish the approval process of demand change.

Need to clarify the approval process, approval personnel, approval items and approval process of demand change. There are two purposes: first, standardize the process of issuing changes by customers as much as possible, and reduce unnecessary, non-urgent, unreasonable and "invalid changes" that are not intended by senior leaders. The second is to leave a written basis to prepare a "change account" for possible future cost changes and claims. Any "change" that fails to fulfill the examination and approval procedures will be invalid and will not be accepted.

An effective requirement change process should include confirming the change, evaluating the value of the change, analyzing the impact of the change on the project, and submitting it to the top management of both parties for evaluation to determine whether to implement the change. The change request must have written materials. Users need to submit a written application when they find that the demand changes due to business changes. So that the project leaders of both parties can know all the changes. Moreover, users are more cautious when submitting written change applications, which are generally conducted after internal discussions, reducing repeated changes caused by different internal views of users.

(3) For sporadic changes, focus on research and batch processing.

Hold a special meeting on demand change once a week or twice a week or even once a month, concentrate on studying and dealing with these piecemeal changes, actively control the pace of work, and try to avoid affecting the overall progress of project operation because of dealing with piecemeal changes. For example, formally submit to the customer a completion plan of demand change in each stage, indicating the time, cost, construction period cost, workload increase caused by the change, etc. Ask customers to cooperate with the demand change plan, determine the change time limit, control the change scale, wait for outdated changes, do not make outrageous changes, ensure the overall situation, and abandon small changes.

④ Assess the impact of various demand changes.

Customers' needs will never be met, maybe every day, in order to control frequent demand changes. It is necessary to evaluate and quantify the cost after the demand changes, form an analysis report and submit it to the leaders of both parties. Otherwise, blind compromise will only make the project worse. The implementation consultant needs to control the schedule cost of customers and the company and analyze the cost of each customer's demand change. Confirm which ones need to be changed at a fee and which ones can cooperate with customers for free. This can not maintain the customer relationship, but also cause unnecessary losses to the company.

⑤ Confirm whether the customer accepts the change fee.

To make customers realize that change has a price, it is necessary to judge with customers whether the demand change is still going on. For example, there is no problem with the change, but it should be clear whether the customer can accept the problems brought about by it, such as delay in construction period, increase in cost and decrease in efficiency. Generally speaking, if the customer thinks the change is necessary (not proposed by his superior), he will accept the consequences. Through consultation with customers, the project team may get a return or even if there is no return, it will not cause complaints from both the company and customers.

If the customer thinks that the change is necessary, but it can be postponed, both parties will sign a memorandum for later settlement. If the customer thinks that the change is dispensable, it will be cancelled in most cases. This can prevent frequent changes and make customers realize that not all requirements need to be changed, and not all requirements need to be modified immediately. Generally, customers don't know much about MES, which is simple, but it may be complicated to solve. According to the author's experience, generally speaking, the user's demand for gold plating can be postponed or even ignored. If the new requirements of users do not affect the realization of core business, they can be arranged after the existing functions are improved.

6. Monthly change records shall be reported to the leaders of both parties.

Finally, the implementation consultant shall, at any time, copy the relevant change measures and records to the top management of both parties for the record, which can take various forms such as briefing, documents, copies, cc, meetings, etc. Grasping the initiative and gradually making unreasonable random and frequent changes will become an embarrassing event for customers to be embarrassed to speak, form a normal project execution atmosphere and good work habits as soon as possible, and also leave a foreshadowing for the liability problems that may be caused by changes.

Finally, at the beginning of MES project, special attention should be paid to the publicity and training of the project team and customers, so that all members can understand the significance of change control.