White Paper

Achieving Change
Change is inevitable - but everyone resists it. The best systems in the world will fail if the implementation does not effectively deal with change management. In December 1998, with the millennium fast approaching, a Fortune 500 food manufacturer needed to ensure that its many diverse manufacturing systems would not fail in on January 1 2000. It also wanted to take advantage of the Y2K threat to achieve some standardization of its Net Contents Control and Compliance and SPC systems and business practices across plants. QIC was called upon to replace existing systems in 20 of its plants with certified Y2K compliant solutions. The client had grown by acquisition. There were not only technology issues to deal with, but also cultural ones - including a less-than-favorable field impression of head office staff in some plants. Three of the solutions undergoing remediation were sophisticated home -grown solutions with support in multiple plants. The developers of these solutions were still employees of the company, and to varying degrees, had lobbied unsuccessfully for their software to become the corporate standard. In that sense, we were viewed as a competitor. There were few, if any, similarities between plants - different products, terminology, scales and checkweighers, and even different regulators! QIC took up the challenge and assembled 4 teams, each led by a QIC project manager. The other people on the team came from QIC’s resource pool or from the client’s existing integrator. This was a classic example of co-opetition — cooperating with a direct competitor to achieve results for the client. Client corporate people were busy with other Y2K projects, so except for scheduling, and status conference calls, QIC was pretty much on its own to make this happen. At minimum, a plant needed software, configuration, and training. In most cases they also needed new infrastructure including hardware, operating systems, Oracle, and test equipment. QIC’s task was to match the existing system’s functionality, and do so in a way that a common set of business practices and rules would result across the organization. Given the diversity of systems, this was a tall order, with a very real deadline. QIC selected a very flexible software solution - one that was configurable enough to permit data collection to be adapted to the client requirements, much like building a spreadsheet. The team would spend the first week at the plant gaining a detailed understanding the existing systems, installing the infrastructure, and building specific data collection routines to emulate the existing system. The next week would be spent finalizing the data collection routines and reviewing them with all interested parties. Then the team provided custom written user documentation, training, and round the clock user support to ensure user acceptance. When the team left the plant, the system was installed, converted, working, documented, and accepted both formally and informally. There were plants that presented significant challenges, and even one where we were given inaccurate information about a particular interface. A few months after the project, QIC did follow up visits to “top-up” training. At one plant that had been particularly resistant to the new system, we were told by a line operator "When you guys came in here, I was ready to kill you for taking away what we had. But this new system is so much better - I will kill anyone who tries to touch it!" Seven years later, those same systems are still in place, largely unchanged except for upgraded software releases. The client continues to achieve significant results from them.

Achieving Change

Change is inevitable - but everyone resists it. The best systems in the world will fail if the implementation does not effectively deal with change management.

In December 1998, with the millennium fast approaching, a Fortune 500 food manufacturer needed to ensure that its many diverse manufacturing systems would not fail in on January 1 2000. It also wanted to take advantage of the Y2K threat to achieve some standardization of its Net Contents Control and Compliance and SPC systems and business practices across plants. QIC was called upon to replace existing systems in 20 of its plants with certified Y2K compliant solutions.

The client had grown by acquisition. There were not only technology issues to deal with, but also cultural ones - including a less-than-favorable field impression of head office staff in some plants. Three of the solutions undergoing remediation were sophisticated home -grown solutions with support in multiple plants. The developers of these solutions were still employees of the company, and to varying degrees, had lobbied unsuccessfully for their software to become the corporate standard. In that sense, we were viewed as a competitor. There were few, if any, similarities between plants - different products, terminology, scales and checkweighers, and even different regulators!

QIC took up the challenge and assembled 4 teams, each led by a QIC project manager. The other people on the team came from QIC’s resource pool or from the client’s existing integrator. This was a classic example of co-opetition — cooperating with a direct competitor to achieve results for the client. Client corporate people were busy with other Y2K projects, so except for scheduling, and status conference calls, QIC was pretty much on its own to make this happen.

At minimum, a plant needed software, configuration, and training. In most cases they also needed new infrastructure including hardware, operating systems, Oracle, and test equipment. QIC’s task was to match the existing system’s functionality, and do so in a way that a common set of business practices and rules would result across the organization. Given the diversity of systems, this was a tall order, with a very real deadline.

QIC selected a very flexible software solution - one that was configurable enough to permit data collection to be adapted to the client requirements, much like building a spreadsheet. The team would spend the first week at the plant gaining a detailed understanding the existing systems, installing the infrastructure, and building specific data collection routines to emulate the existing system. The next week would be spent finalizing the data collection routines and reviewing them with all interested parties. Then the team provided custom written user documentation, training, and round the clock user support to ensure user acceptance. When the team left the plant, the system was installed, converted, working, documented, and accepted both formally and informally.

There were plants that presented significant challenges, and even one where we were given inaccurate information about a particular interface. A few months after the project, QIC did follow up visits to “top-up” training. At one plant that had been particularly resistant to the new system, we were told by a line operator "When you guys came in here, I was ready to kill you for taking away what we had. But this new system is so much better - I will kill anyone who tries to touch it!"

Seven years later, those same systems are still in place, largely unchanged except for upgraded software releases. The client continues to achieve significant results from them.