Columbus ERP Software

5 Warehouse Management Books You Should Read

According to a search on Amazon, here are some of the top books that increase efficiency and lower costs for warehouse operations.

1. Warehouse Management – A Complete Guide to Improving Efficiency and Minimizing Costs in the Modern Warehouse
By Gwynne Richards

This book touches on the challenges retail warehouse management professionals face on a daily basis. From keeping with the latest technologies to keeping on top of environmental issues, this book covers the gambit of best practices for efficient management of any warehouse environment.

The key takeaway from this book is how the author walks you through the best practices of lower costs and increasing efficiency for warehouse management. It not only states facts, it supports its information with case studies and other information.

2. Warehouse Distributions and Operations Handbook
By David Mulcahy

Covering the subject of warehouse distribution and efficiency, this book is a great read for any warehouse professional. With its hands-on approach, it gives you a look at topics, including:

• Distribution
• Transportation
• Facility Layout and Product Flow Patterns
• And much more…

The key takeaway from this book is how it covers more hands-on topics and explains it to its target reader – the retail warehouse management professional.

3. Excellence in Warehouse Management
By Stuart Emmett

This book covers everything one would need to know to when it comes to a streamlined and holistic warehouse management system. Stuart Emmett introduces readers to valuable thinking points, self-assessment practices and case studies, while challenging you to think critically and consider your own operations and plans for the future. This book is truly an essential guide for any warehouse management or supply chain execution professional.

The key takeaway from this book is that warehouses should be seen as crucial links for distribution in a supply chain. They can be streamlined and adaptable to help a company to be profitable.

4. Highly Competitive Warehouse Management
By Jeroen P. van den Berg

This book unravels the secrets of why some distribution centres perform great while others struggle. Want a best-in-class operation and a competitive advantage for your organisation? Jeroen P. van den Berg’s book is one you should read. Use the Warehouse Maturity Scan tool to analyse the current state of your warehouse, distribution centre and supply chain management. Based on the results, the book contains an action plan for improvement.

The key takeaway from this book is that a variety of human behaviour, process redesign, warehouse management system, and supply chain alignment changes can vastly improve operations in your company.

5. Selecting, Buying, Installing and Using a Modern Warehouse Management System
By Jan Young

When it comes to finding the right system and how to go about purchasing it, this book has you covered. Retail warehouse management professionals should read this book, based on its insights into the selection and buying process for warehouse information systems.

The key takeaway from this book is the amount of information it gives you about the procurement process for warehouse management systems. From marketplace considerations to justifying and funding the purchase, this book covers the process of purchasing a warehouse management system.

Sit Down and Do Some Reading

No matter your preference for reading, I think this list of books will get you the information and insights from the authors you need to help boost efficiency and reduce costs for any warehouse operation.

Scott Hamilton, Columbus, Publishes Food Products Manufacturing Book

The definitive book on using Microsoft Dynamics AX for food manufacturers

Columbus today announced the publishing of Food Products Manufacturing using Microsoft Dynamics AX.

The latest book by Columbus senior consultant and author Scott Hamilton discusses the details for maximizing Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 in food product businesses. The book focuses on how Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 provides an integrated ERP system to support the business practices of food product manufacturing and distribution firms. According to Dr. Hamilton, the book was written for companies considering or implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX as their ERP solution.

The book contents provide a complete walk through of functionality related to operations and supply chain management, and numerous case studies highlight solutions to common issues. The book is ideal for firms involved in a system selection process and can help reduce selection risk, evaluate system fit and customizations, and provide a vision for an integrated system.

According to Columbus CEO Thomas Honore, “We work hard to develop and deliver useful content like this to make our customers and prospects more competitive - it is part of our commitment to and investment in the markets we serve.” Columbus is widely recognized as a global leader in maximizing efficiency and business performance for companies within the food manufacturing industry.

“We in Microsoft Business Solutions are excited to see Scott providing thought leadership for effectively using Microsoft Dynamics AX to manage a manufacturing business and gain ROI, this time focusing on food products manufacturing“stated Kirill Tatarinov, President, Microsoft Business Solutions.

The book additionally provides numerous business processes related to food product operations, developed as part of the pioneering work at Columbus and incorporated into their “RapidValue” tool set. Food Products Manufacturing by Scott Hamilton is available on Amazon.com.

Planning for the Perfect ERP System

Look closely at a flawed ERP system,and you may find a flawed project plan.

When contemplating a new ERP system, it’s a safe bet that many manufacturers confine themselves to an evaluation of the ERP systems under consideration, and of the vendors that are supplying them. Relatively little attention, in short, is usually paid to how the chosen system will be implemented.

Which can be a mistake, and a costly one at that. For when an ERP system fails, or under-delivers, the root cause is often not the system itself, but failures within the implementation process.

“A flawed initial diagnosis, poor process design, blurred accountabilities, and botched training and testing: each of these can cause an ERP implementation to fail or fall short of its objectives,” warns Derek Duffy, a project manager with Microsoft Dynamics AX manufacturing specialists Columbus.

Accordingly, says Duffy, there’s recently been something of a sea change underway - at least among savvier manufacturers.

“Columbus has always followed a structured implementation approach but now there’s a growing awareness of the importance of implementation methodologies,” he explains. “Which is logical enough: our customers are hiring us for our implementation expertise, and our implementation methodology is the tool that enables us to harness that expertise, and deploy best practices to deliver an assured implementation.”

Indeed, stresses Duffy, a sound methodology is absolutely vital, if a manufacturer’s expectations in respect of their ERP systems are to be met. Look at instances where ERP isn’t delivering on its promise, he points out, and the problem can often be the choice of implementation approach, or the way that it has been followed – though the effect of rapid technology change should also be reckoned with.

“That’s why we’re sometimes asked to reimplement, following a failed implementation by another reseller,” he notes. “It’s usually not the choice of system that was wrong, but how the business has gone about implementing it.”

And while an implementation methodology isn’t an absolute guarantee of success, it does heavily stack the odds in favour of success, explains Duffy.

“Simply put, a thorough and structured implementation methodology will deliver implementations that are more likely to come in on time, on budget, and be of the right quality,” he stresses.

Six-phase flow

And Columbus itself, he explains, has recently updated its own ERP implementation methodology.

Formerly known as Diamond, it’s now called SureStep+ - a change of name that is far more than cosmetic, Duffy claims.

“Diamond was a distillation of our experience over twenty years and 6,000 ERP implementations,” he says. “But SureStep+ builds on that. We’ve taken Microsoft’s own Microsoft-specific SureStep methodology, and significantly enhanced it with the insights that were embedded in Diamond. It’s aligned with Project Management Institute guidelines,

and contains clearly defined roles and process ownership definitions, utilising recommended best practice. Better still, it uses fewer project control documents - so it’s more efficient - and has a multiproduct capability, as well as offering a more detailed view of roles and responsibilities.”

So how does it work? Look at an ERP implementation following the SureStep+ methodology, explains Duffy, and you’ll see that it carefully follows a six-phase process flow. The project starts with a diagnostic phase, where the business’s business requirements and project objectives are collected, and the project scope and approach determined and agreed. Then comes an analysis phase, in which the business’s existing processes and systems are evaluated, and shortcomings and improvements identified.

A design phase comes next, where the business’s new and improved ‘to be’ processes are laid out, together with the system steps that will turn these into reality, following any relevant best practices and pre-existing templates. Then, during the development phase, the ERP system is configured to deliver these processes, along with any required customisations, integrations and interfaces, and data migration scripts.

Next is the deployment phase, in which activities take place to prepare the system for ‘go live’ and hand-over to the business. During this time users are trained, data migration plans finalised, process testing is completed and the live ‘production’ environment set up and checked. The final phase, operation, sees the hand-over complete, and any required ‘go live’ support carried out.

Rigour

“Having a detailed methodology in the form of SureStep+ makes an enormous difference to a project, and helps to reduce risk while improving implementation quality,” emphasises Duffy. “Built on a structured and detailed analysis of customer expectations, it has comprehensive and disciplined documentation, provides clearly-defined roles and responsibilities, and has a rigorous approach to change management and resource allocation. In short, everyone knows what has to be done, and everyone knows who is responsible for doing it.”

Better still, he adds, that very thoroughness offers a layer of insurance against mis-steps in the project, once it is underway. “Members of the implementation team are aligned with each other from the start, and are working towards the same goals and expectations,” he says. “What’s more, everything is well-documented, so that even if there are changes in the project team there is no data loss or delay. Plus, it includes a number of ‘project types’, enabling the approach to project management to be tailored to the size and complexity of the client’s business. And finally,” Duffy concludes, “it’s been proven on both national and international implementations, so you know it’s going to work in a cross-border environment.”

So how then, does Duffy sum up the importance of a methodology to manufacturers contemplating an ERP implementation?

“It’s absolutely vital, and you’ve simply got to have one if you want to succeed,” he says. “Part checklist, part projectplan, and part ‘to do’ list, an implementation methodology says what’s got to be done, when, and who’s got to do it. And without formalising that, any ERP project is running an enormous risk.”