Learning a New System - Management Essay Example

About 7 years ago I was given an opportunity to help out with a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning Software) implementation within my current company. This team comprised five employees from our site and eight traveling subject-matter experts to help in training the team and also offer implementation support. About 6 months into the yearlong implementation, one of my fellow employee's became ill suddenly and had to drop out of the team. Around mid-September, the plant manager approached me and asked if I would be interested in learning the new software. However, the plant manager told me the team was already behind on the training/data validation and I would have to learn the new system by myself to catch up. After a quick discussion with the site leadership, they suggested I should start training the following day since this would have a major impact on the site if we couldn't meet the April 4th go-live date.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Order now

In the following business day, I showed up to the conference room where the core team has been for the last 6 months. The first person who approached me first was Randy Bower. Randy has been with the company for over 25 years and has previously led about 50 similar project implementations before the current project. However, this was one of the largest and complex software implementation projects due to the size of the organization site. Randy welcomed me to the team and then introduced me to the other team members. Everyone in the team was friendly and they were glad they had someone to help out on short notice. Once I settled in, I was given the software manual and some random work instructions they thought might help me learn the new system. At this point, I was starting to get a little overwhelmed because the manuals for the system consisted of 4 books that were totaling over 4000 pages. I just sat there for a second trying to clear my mind and then I knew I had to get started. Slowly I started flipping through the manuals while simultaneously practicing on MFGPro (ERP system). Over the next month, I started feeling comfortable using the system and began writing standard work instructions for all the employees at the site. Randy and the rest the team were impressed by how quickly I picked up in operating the system and he asked me to lead the site training. This came as a surprise because I was with the team for only a month and no I had an opportunity to train approximately 350 employees on different functions like customer service, shipping/receiving, engineering, operations, etc... After a number of training classes over the next couple of months, the employees were feeling confident that they were ready to use the new system.

On Sunday, April 3rd, 2011 the team showed up at work at 7 in the morning to start the transition to the new system. The first thing we did was turn off the old ERP system and began transferring the data into MFGPro. At around 4 in the evening, all the data had been transferred and we were left with the work of validating that the data was correct. This process took over 2 hours to perform since we had some minor glitches. The next procedure on the checklist was to reprint all the paperwork on the shop floor. Our site is an aerospace manufacturing site so all the paperwork needs to be precise since we needed to have traceability on everything. As soon as we printed them we had to start organizing the 1,100 work orders as quickly as possible since it was almost 8 P.M and the next day was going to be very busy once the site went live on the new system. By 9:30 P.M we finished up everything and headed home to get some sleep.

On Monday, April 4th, 2011 we showed up at work at 6 A.M to make sure everything was going smoothly. The team split up across the site to make sure we had support coverage across the different functions. First I worked my way through the operations department and helped through some minor issues but didn't really see anything concerning. After that, I went to walk through the shipping department which was a little difficult since the shipping department is spread out across 4 different buildings. While in the shipping department I realized that they were having some problems processing the shipments so I called all the shippers to a quick meeting in building 1. Once everyone had arrived we processed a couple of shipments together so that they could ask any questions/concerns that they might have had at the time. Afterward, the employee's seemed to be doing okay on the new system and our work was just to render any necessary support on just the general questions. The software implementation team continued to support the implementation of the project for another 2 months before going back to our old roles in the organization.

This project did provide me with a great learning experience opportunity and has opened up a lot of other opportunities for me since the implementation of the software. Since I have been asked to help in providing support to multiple implementations of different sites across the country. Before the software implementation work, I was working with the operations department but I was asked if I would want to switch to the supply chain management which I accepted because I am a type of person that enjoys new learning experiences on programs/software. Now, I am working towards furthering my career by getting a computer science degree so that I can help with leading/designing new software. I still remain in contact with all the people in the first project team that I was involved in and we have been discussing my next step.