MANAGING AN MRPII IMPLEMENTATION.

The organisation needed to accomplish this is simple, a top management steering committee and a middle management project team. The other ingredients required are equally important, the priority the project has in the eyes of the Chief Executive, the resources allocated, an understanding of the principles involved and the desire of everyone to succeed.
 

Executive Steering Committee

Thus the safety and comfort of the known is threatened, empires rise and fall, which together can only be food for discontent and trouble. This needs to be managed with care. For the project to succeed the steering committee need to be the driving force pushing for progress and removing the obstacles as they occur. They cannot afford to sit back and take a back seat leaving it to others assuming it will happen on its own.
 

Project Team

The team will differ for each company but as a general policy it would consist of a full time project manager and part time team members. 
The project manager is an essential element in the project as he will be the one who is driving it.Care must be taken when choosing him as you are effectively putting the company's future in his hands. He needs to be full time and can come from any discipline of the company except the data processing/MIS department, else it will become known as a computer departments system. Many think he must be an MRP expert, but the key factor is that he knows the products, the people and the company politics. He can always learn about MRP but it is not so easy to learn about the company. He needs to be a senior person who is a go getter, a change champion, one who will make things happen and who is respected within the company. Probably the one who you think you can least afford to use, but the investment in this person is returned ten fold.

The project team members are the department heads, the boss men of the doers. They need to be the heads of all the departments as the decisions made will affect how these departments are to be run in the future. Only they can make those decisions. This team need to understand the current methods used, why they are used and if alternative procedures are proposed if they are acceptable.
In some of the larger company's a number of full time project team members are appointed to the team. These are usually very experienced company employees who really understand how the company operates or have very special skills which will assist the other members of the team. The advantage of this approach is that these members will have the time to do special investigations or trials for the project team. The disadvantage is that they tend to be seen as the "team" and the part time user members do not get deeply involved and leave the decisions to them.

The project team is responsible for running the project. They need to develop and maintain a detailed project plan, provide the direction the plan should take, and they need to organise, plan, coordinate, direct, measure and report on all project efforts. They need to carry out the decisions of the steering committee. Finally, they need to coordinate the education programme which becomes quite complex as the project advances with the time phasing of the specialised training. It essential that all the users are represented or directly involved during all phases of the project, else on transfer day they will say "I didn't agree to this" and fight the changes. The project demands a tremendous commitment in time and effort from the team members and they need to off load all their routine work to their number two for the duration of the project.

A well run project is a pleasure to see and the results often exceed those planned for or expected, but a badly managed one is a disaster for everyone. The cost difference is only about ten percent but the results are worlds apart. The lessons we can learn from other peoples implementations are; if you are going to do it, do it properly with all the might of the organisation behind it. Ensure your people are fully educated and trained so they understand the principles and mechanics of what they are trying to do and why they are trying to do it. For those who are contemplating this route, if you put the effort in the results will come, if you are going to do it half hearted don't bother as it will only be an expensive failure.