Discovery
The first stage in any implementation is working with you, the client, to discover your current processes and your ideal future state. This is critical is to really dive into the pain points you currently have, and to understand your business, to be sure the future state takes those into consideration.
If you are looking to start an implementation definitely give MSA Systems a call today at (408)252-9000 to schedule the first call.
Software Demo
Once we have determined the most important features, we will be able to demonstrate those features of the software through your business processes. This will give your team a clear picture of the software and how your team will operate in the future.
This is also a great opportunity to ask questions about the software, the implementation team, and the timeline.
Be sure that at this point you feel comfortable that the software will perform to your desired specifications.
Test Environment
The first stage in a successful implementation is to setup a test environment. This is critical to ensure all of the configuration options are set appropriately, and to have a training tool to ensure when it is time to go live, your team is fully prepared.
In publicly traded companies who are Sarbanes-Oxley compliant this is a required step, but it is highly recommended in all situations.
Even after go live, having a test environment is important to test new functionality or different configurations. Every business goes through phases of growth and reduction. those changes often come with changes to business processes and having an environment to test new configurations is critical to success.
Training
Once the test environment is set and orders have been worked through your entire business processes, proving that the reciprocal transactions are happening in the connected systems, users can be created and their security settings can be set. Each individual should have a script of their day to day duties to test and to confirm functionality.
We like to set a project champion who will be the point person and who will be trained on the full scope of the program. From there our team will assist the product champion in training their staff to perform their scripts and ensure each is familiar with the operations they will be expected to perform.
Go Live
Once the software has been fully tested and the staff has been trained it is time to sign off on the User Acceptance Testing form and migrate to the new system. For warehouse management systems this usually includes a full inventory count that will load the database with the data needed.
At this critical point, we have staff on hand or on site to ensure a successful transition.