This Epilogue was written in October, 2003, after a telephone interview with Maurice Buckley, MD of System Label. It's purpose is to review progress since the original Case Study, which was produced in the first quarter of 2002.

What has happened since implementation?

In the last 12-18 months System Label's business has been buoyant even with many of the organisation's large Irish clients downsizing.

This buoyancy in the Irish organisation can, in part, be attributed to the ability to easily and seamlessly transfer workload between the Irish and German plants, an initiative developed as part of System Label's eBusiness project.

Although the project is not yet complete, it is "90% there" and the phase to fully automate the processing of transactions between plants should be completed by the end of 2003.

Measures of Success

Although there is no way to directly attribute any cost reductions or increased efficiencies to the new systems in place, Maurice Buckley, MD of System Label, believes that there have been benefits. "The ability to transfer orders back and forth has now become very straightforward and even the transfer of small orders is now very worthwhile", commented Buckley. In addition to this, it also gives the production floor better visibility on imminent jobs and therefore the ability to plan production to make best use of available capacity.

Although revenue generated by System Label's Irish clients has dropped slightly in the past 12 to 18 months, some of the work won by its German sister plant (largely from German motor manufacturers) has increased. The new order transfer system allowed work to be easily shared between plants making best use of capacity and geographic location of required materials.

Using this as a measure would seem to suggest that the new systems put in place, whilst not delivering quantifiable results, have solved earlier process and production capacity issues.

Changes in views/perception/understanding of business and issues

Following a detailed review of the internal processes and systems with GenBase, the consultants brought in to run the project, System Label had a very good understanding of what was required in its eBusiness system. As a result there have been few surprises to date and all the requirements that were defined at the outset of the project have been met.

One thing the development of the new system has shown are the ways in which bespoke systems can often have trouble communicating with each other (often like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole). The process of identifying and then resolving those communication issues has given System Label a better understanding of the systems being used in both Germany and Ireland.

Changes in work practices/business model

According to Buckley, there have been no changes made to the System Label business model, "We wanted the system to work for us and not us to work for the system. Buying a computer system to change work processes or practices is madness. It should be the processes in place that drive the need for new systems to run them more efficiently!"

Ongoing issues/problems to resolve

The implementation of the project discussed earlier in this case study - only one phase of a much larger project - has been more problematic that was first thought. The ongoing identification of process tweaks coupled with issues in having systems communicate with each other (each of the two sites uses different computer systems in addition to differing processes) has meant that implementation of the fully automated order transfer system has taken six months longer than expected to complete. To fully test the system after each of these changes is made is a time consuming task in itself.

Unlike a single site implementation, the issues associated with implementing a system over two sites have to be considered. Working with two different systems, languages, cultures and ways of doing things can make delays inevitable! In this instance it is vital to have a system champion on each site - someone that is excited about the project and has the power and seniority to make it happen.

Although the implementation has taken much longer than expected, Buckley is happy that the system they end up with will be the system that will add maximum value to System Label now and in the future.

Relevant technology/business developments since implementation.

Developments in the company coupled with an integration requirement with the new systems being developed drove System Label to implement new book-keeping systems. Unfortunately, due to differences in tax legislation between Ireland and Germany, two systems had to be purchased. This again caused a delay in development of the order transfer system as work had to be undertaken in installing and integrating the new systems with those already in place.

Additionally, an upgrade of MS Access (the database software being used by System Label) was purchased to provide complex order processing and supply functionality.

Any future planned developments.

Most pressingly, System Label wants to get the first (and current) phase of its eBusiness project completed by the end of the year.

Following on from this, within the next 12 months, the organisation plans to integrate a recently acquired UK-based plant into the order transfer system thus offering even more shared capacity. Given the learnings taken from the current project, this is likely to be a far more manageable and straightforward task for Buckley and the team.

System Label had also planned to develop Internet access to its databases for customers (to check stock levels or progress of orders in production for example) but, according to Buckley, the demand from clients for such services has decreased in the past 12-18 months. If a demand for such services is identified they may well consider implementing this functionality.

Researched and written by Scott McInnes, Freedom Marketing.