A NOTE ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF SOLUTION DESIGN

With our solid foundation in systems integration, we understand systems design, what is necessary, what is wasteful and what good design looks like.  With today’s proliferation of cloud solutions one might wonder what “solution design” means.  With the depth and configurability of today’s software, and the expectation that the software follows the user everywhere using mobile apps raises the importance of the user community knowing how the software will function prior to configuration.  Tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars can be lost due to poor solution design, as can projects which fail or are not sustainable.  Even with good solution design practices but a lack of understanding by the user team, solutions may not fit the need and cause owners to be faced with the choice of incurring additional operating costs or paying for rework of the solution. Fortunately the level of design tools previously not available make good solution design, and understanding by the user team, possible to achieve in a very efficient manner during project implementation.

ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE ROADMAPS

Roadmaps help companies plan their software implementations, avoiding the all too common mis-mash of overlapping applications and ineffective solutions.  This is important given the need to time such implementations around other initiatives, business seasons and more. PerfOps has a deep and broad experience in the application of software to solve enterprise challenges which means we can quickly create roadmaps where others may require hundreds of hours and several specialists – or simply struggle.  Our roadmaps are specific and become living documents useful at all levels in the organization.  After creating the initial roadmap, we help owners with methods to maintain them and evolve them as needs change.

SOFTWARE SELECTION

End user teams are less experienced at selecting software than software sales teams are at selling it.  In addition, end users typically don’t have the time to focus on a subject requiring as much interaction with vendors, discovery sessions, data prep and demos.  We have seen more projects than even large company user teams, we have the experience, focus and detached perspective necessary to facilitate the best informed decisions.

PerfOps has developed two closely related standardized software selection approaches.  The first is for smaller, yet critical, applications such as WMS and TMS.  The other is for large scale applications such as ERP. 

SOLUTION ARCHITECTURE & SYSTEMS DESIGN

Solution architecture and systems design are subjects many think are technical details during project execution.  We believe that these subjects are fundamental to project planning because only through these processes can the project resources, risks, budget and timeline be accurately known. Solution architects and/or senior designers should be engaged in the discovery processes and should be interacting directly with the client teams, driving the project instead of being kept “heads down in the back room,” so to speak.

AUTOMATION

PerfOps principal focused on plant floor automation for his first 20 years and has led automation projects up to $100M. | While PerfOps is not a systems integrator, we have seen a lot of automation projects and are able to help owners plan, design, lead and implement automation at all levels.  Our last 20 years of focus on enterprise applications has often involved automation and gives us a broader business perspective than engineering firms focused on automation solutions alone.

OPTIMIZING EXISTING OPERATIONS

Technology solutions are often implemented without either sufficient re-engineering of existing processes or the time, consideration or skill set for process optimization. PerfOps assesses these processes and solutions, and prioritizes the areas of opportunity.  Then, after understanding the company’s value proposition, culture and resources, starting with the end in mind we help owners plan and execute projects and initiatives to gain the best, lasting results.

IMPLEMENTING SUSTAINABLE CHANGE

Most projects involving process optimization or technology implementation involve change and needs to be planned with sufficient attention to people and process. Even when people are willing to adopt to new processes, which is not always the case, changes need to be proactively planned and led to prevent unintended results and even chaos.  PerfOps plans and manages change processes on all projects whether they be technology driven or operations improvements. The owner’s ability to sustain the change stems from our focus beyond the software and process to developing the owner’s team.

FIXING STALLED OR FAILING PROJECTS & OPERATIONS INITIATIVES

PerfOps is often called in to address troubled projects.  Our most senior team members are available for these assignments and are adept at finding and and quickly addressing the root cause issues. We have seen a lot and the patterns always jump off the page to us.  We quickly assess, advise and work with the client teams to develop solutions to not only get the project moving but also ensure the required project management and governance is in place to keep the project on track.  We focus on the project team, identifying gaps, recommending solutions and developing existing owner resources wherever possible to complete the solution. These teams end up more proficient and capable of running future phases or other projects after our engagement ends.

PROJECT GOVERNANCE

All projects need effective project management.  On all but the smallest projects this means a project manager who has the time to dedicate to activity management, timeline and cost reviews.  We develop useful project managers who participate in solution design, data preparation and operations improvements.  Beyond project management the oversight of an appropriate steering team is vital.  Our members serve on many such teams, leveraging their long tenures and deep experience to enable superior results from the project team.