Do you need help with ERP process improvement? It’s a problem that we have seen time and time again. Any business, of any size, has business processes that don’t align with the overall goals and strategies of the company.
Workarounds and time-wasting methods of doing things build up over time. Because things aren’t disruptive at first, they are ignored until they become too big to handle. It eventually leads to massive amounts of wasted money and resources within the company.
Labor-intensive processes that result in excess payroll, disconnected communications, cumbersome reporting, supply chain issues, and long service times are all symptoms.
Our solution? ERP Business Process Improvement with Epicor.
ERP Business Process Improvement is a total examination and reworking of key processes and production lines in your business using ERP solutions. No area or division should be immune to a business process optimization review — whether it’s your back office or front facing workflows between your sales team and potential clients.
Defined processes must end in defined goals.
Setting down the goals you need to meet first will ensure the new processes you put in place increase productivity and improve efficiency.
Frequently, processes and systems within a company are simply in place because they «have always been that way», and no one is really sure why they exist or what the original purpose was.
The focus of the ERP business process alignment strategy is to help your organization reach its stated goals of efficiency and effectiveness.
Remember, you’re restructuring everything for a reason—don’t let broken processes survive simply because they are convenient or they are simply the way things have been done for as long as employees remember.
By realigning expectations for how workflows should be run within a business and how work creates the necessary outcomes will kick start the change your business needs.
The purpose of the business process improvement initiative is to improve the WHOLE company.
Organizational roles, culture and work structure — even the placement of workstations are all possible places of loss and waste. Employees and executives alike should be properly prepared for the coming changes and of the importance of the process.
Often, we find that employees are already aware of the holes and leaks that a business process optimization process is designed to fix, but there are barriers within the organization that prevent them from being able to suggest or implement solutions.
The end result should be a streamlined, cost-cutting organization, rebuilding processes from the ground up to meet revitalized goals and reduce costs across the business.
While some systems may stick around because they truly work, others may just be slowing you down and getting more inefficient as they get older.
Modern technologies like Epicor Kinetic, Epicor Prophet 21, and their smart integrations are now key to a successful business process re-engineering project.
With the support of a good ERP system, experienced Epicor consultants, and an efficient ERP process improvement strategy, you can lower expenses while still improving your bottom line.
If you haven’t defined your business vision, or it’s been a while since you have, here’s a refresher on why you need it.
A vision is a global concept. It paints a picture of the enterprise’s direction and future. An effective vision statement succinctly communicates an uplifting philosophy that energizes your business stakeholders to embrace challenges in order to successfully accomplish its goals.
The vision statement should remain relatively constant throughout all areas of your business.
The normal lifespan of a vision statement is 10 to 20 years. It articulates the ultimate long-term objectives for your business. The time to revisit your vision statement is the point when your business has either achieved its vision or substantially moved away from it.
💡 Microsoft’s Corporate vision since 1975 was «to put a computer on every desk and in every home».
In March 1999, Microsoft drafted a new company vision that focused on the power of the Internet, «offering people and businesses the ability to be connected and empowered anytime, anywhere, and on any device».
And as of May 2025, Microsoft’s mission is «to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more».
Now that you’ve got the «what» and «why» answered for your business, it’s time to jump into the «how». Once you’ve figured out your vision and mission, it’s time to lay down how you’re going to execute and bring them to reality.
That’s where setting goals and objectives come into play. We’ll start with a friendly reminder of the importance of making them SMART. Which means making them:
First, you need to identify the goals of every process and workflow within your business. You must refocus your mission for the business on every level—from broad goals to specific end results and benchmarks for every process and employee.
Then you can get to work on building out systems that will be able to reach those goals. Don’t worry, we know it sounds overwhelming, but if you need help, TeccWeb’s here to help you through it.
TeccWeb’s experts are ready to lead your Epicor business process optimization project to success.
It’s hard to avoid — business process optimization done right, takes significant effort.
You will have to take apart and break down your organization like a machine so that you can oil the cogs and everything can run smoothly again.
However difficult, it will make every single task easier to complete, and workflows will be running and reaching goals faster than expected.
As reengineering might require you to rebuild entire processes rather than just optimizing them, make sure to thoroughly document the new processes, and the reasons your organization has arrived at them.
That way, you will always have a golden standard to revisit if you find that the organization is drifting away again or have new employees that need to slot into the workflow.
Documentation as you go ensures that the success you find after improving your processes will last for a long time.
The principles of ERP are founded on the benefits of working together.
ESE changes your relationship with ERP, enabling everyone to securely engage within your businesses and leverage ERP to make more informed decisions, improve customer satisfaction, and foster innovative ideas.
This is just one small example of how TeccWeb can help you build an Epicor ERP strategy to bring your business growth goals to life.
Many organizations focus on the physical and logistical changes needed when transforming their workplace. Afterwards, they realize they should have focused much more on the culture change needed for success.
The impact of change on people can be significant, and managing this is a crucial step to reaping the benefits of these programs. Good change practices include:
💡 Be Careful…
One of the most important things to remember when it comes to such a huge organizational change? Business process improvement should always be planned before any kind of enterprise software implementation.
ERP is not a silver bullet that can magically fix all of a business’ problems. Certainly, it can help streamline workflows and vastly improve data collection and reporting, but implementing and integrating software into broken processes is an invitation for disaster.
Since enterprise software is often so involved and all-encompassing, it can exaggerate communicative problems and amplify the effects of silos within your company. You need to connect your business through process engineering before you then go on to solidify those connections with software.
This is the only way to guarantee successful implementation of your ERP software and proper alignment of your processes.
“It is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.” – Isaac Asimov
ERP software can lead a radical, and successful, business process improvement within your company, but only if you fully commit to the change.
We recommend you utilize change management best practices and the help of super users to ease employees into the new processes. Do not let hesitation or pushback slow down the process.
Similar and parallel workflows need to be rearranged to happen close to each other (or cancel one out).
These are the tangles that you need to unpack. And they are even more important in processes happening across multiple locations or if you have global offices.
Crucial to any successful enterprise resource planning strategy is a second look at prioritization within the business.
We provide a list of all the systems and workflows within your business and work with you to order them through importance.
Usually in the span of this process, we will also find redundant functions and tasks within an organization.
Perhaps two employees from different departments are entering leads into a system, or inventory management is done two ways when only one is necessary.
When you engage with TeccWeb for ERP Process Improvement, we take care of interviewing key managers, end users, and stakeholders each in each department and documenting our findings.
We will then work with the executives within your company to understand your metrics and make suggestions for additional metrics in line with best practices in your industry.
For example, we focus on these key metrics for the manufacturing sector.
On-Time Delivery to Commit | Manufacturing Cycle Time |
Time to Make Changeovers | Yield |
Customer Rejects/Return Material Authorizations/Returns | Supplier’s Quality Incoming |
Throughput | Capacity Utilization |
Overall Equipment Effectiveness (OEE) (Availability x Performance x Quality) | Schedule or Production Attainment |
WIP Inventory/Turns | Reportable Health and Safety Incidents |
Reportable Environmental Incidents | Number of Non-Compliance Events / Year |
Percentage Planned vs. Emergency Maintenance Work Orders | Downtime in Proportion to Operating Time |
Rate of New Product Introduction | Engineering Change Order Cycle Time |
Total Manufacturing Cost per Unit Excluding Materials | Manufacturing Cost as a Percentage of Revenue |
Net Operating Profit | Productivity in Revenue per Employee |
Average Unit Contribution Margin | Return on Assets/Return on Net Assets |
EBITDA – (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization) | Customer Fill Rate/On-Time delivery/Perfect Order Percentage |
We will also provide recommendations to help propel your business into a pattern of growth, realizing untapped revenue and new innovations within your company.
When ERP Process Improvement is part of a comprehensive ERP implementation, the recommendations included use technology, best practices, training and documentation for a holistic business improvement model to bolster growth and scale for the future.
If your ERP system no longer fits your day-to-day operations, it may be time to reassess. At TeccWeb, we help Epicor users realign and streamline processes for increased efficiency, reduced costs, and a greater return on investment. Contact our team to explore where your next Epicor ERP improvement should begin.