Infor SyteLine/CSI ERP Implementation Service

Your Successful Implementation Is Guaranteed

While many know why SyteLine—also known as CloudSuite Industrial (CSI)—is ideal for mid-market manufacturers and service providers, people are surprised to hear that we guarantee a successful implementation of SyteLine and wonder how we can make that offer. Here’s how:

The Implementation Process

Process Review

When you fail to plan, you plan to fail, so 80% of the success of any ERP implementation project is to understand your business processes from start to finish. To do so, we will spend 2-3 days to learn about your processes from the people doing the work. For many of our clients, this is the first time anyone has analyzed their process from start to finish and we often identify some things you don’t need to do anymore. You will receive a document at the end that includes what we found and where the gaps are.

For some, we will perform a smaller scale process review as the starting point that hits the high notes to ensure that Infor SyteLine is right for you. To do so, we will run through what we call a business value discovery sheet that identifies the estimated value of SyteLine for your business and how that looks over a 10-year span. Clients find this very insightful and often leads to your solution being laid out on paper prior to the actual purchase and implementation.

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Proof of Concept (POC)

Over the course of about five days, including 2-3 days onsite, our team will show how you can use SyteLine by walking through your processes with sample data – from taking an order in to scheduling, cutting POs, manufacturing, shipping, and invoicing. This is delivered remotely unless you’d like us onsite.

The POC also includes identification of your reporting requirements, how they might need to be customized, and what modifications are needed to the standard invoice, PO and other templates. The POC concludes with development of a project plan.

Note: if there are 20 ways to do something, we’ll show you the one we think is optimal vs. teaching you all 20 and having you pick one – the latter can be overwhelming, especially considering that there are over 1,800 screens and most use about 10%.

Pilot #1: The Proof

To prove that SyteLine will work for you prior to the full implementation, we conduct a pilot that is like a test drive. We will walk your users through producing invoices, checks, statements, POs, and other documents needed – your team will work the keyboard but we’ll guide you every step of the way. Everyone involved in the pilot will have an opportunity to provide feedback, which helps increase buy-in.

Following the pilot session, we will convert all of your data into SyteLine and provide training for your users. Going live with a new ERP system is like having movers pack and unpack your house: you won’t know where anything is at first, so we ensure your users know where everything is prior to implementation and that what they do today can be easily done post-launch in the new system.

Pilot #2: The Test

At this stage, your users will operate SyteLine and be graded on what they learned and their ability. All of your data will have been loaded into SyteLine by this time, so they will be working entirely with their data instead of partial or sample data.

User assessments and findings are provided to your management team as part of a risk management meeting. We are very candid and transparent with you, which includes the estimated risk of going live following this second pilot and areas where improvement is needed. Once everything is in order, we will schedule a launch date.

Launch

Launches are typically scheduled on a weekend: everyone stops what they’re doing mid-day on Friday, we perform the data migration over the weekend, and you start in the new system on Monday with a clean cutover. Some are tempted to run their old ERP system in parallel but, from our experience, this doesn’t work well – inevitably, someone will decide that the old system is more important than the new one and this will create a user adoption barrier that is difficult to surmount. We will have a backup of your current ERP system but we’ve never had to use one.

Post-Launch Support

Once the system has been launched, we will provide 3-5 days of onsite support to ensure your team can do everything needed. We will then return to help with your first month-end close, which can be done remotely if preferred – most find that we can get their month-end close down to 10 days, then down to around three. We’ll return again at the end of the first quarter and at year-end.
After the first 30-60 days of using SyteLine we will follow-up to see if any changes or additional functionality are needed.

How to Get Started

Contact us explore whether SyteLine may be the right ERP system for you and whether a business process review is the right first step to a successful implementation of it.