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I was presented with the opportunity to design and implement a fully customized Enterprise Resource Planning solution and develop the Process and Digital Interventions in a complex manufacturing
and business process. 

In 2019 I was brought onsite to manage the design, intervention, and user adoption of a customized ERP at one of the largest precious metals refineries & brokerages in the US. A variety of factors contributed to the uniqueness of the project; complex manufacturing processes that were almost entirely analog, volatility of the metals markets and supply chain, lack of existing technology infrastructure, and a range of chokepoints impeding user adoption.

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This required a multi faceted approach; establish relationships with employees who were understandably resistant to such an extreme technical change, quickly understand the supply chain and manufacturing process within a worldwide commodities context, work to identify roles and needs in order to develop processes and solutions that would not only improve data flows, but lead to automate business processes. 

Key Challenges
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  • Entirely manual analog manufacturing processes.
  • ERP only used at management level and without operations data collection.
  • Virtually no interaction with technology for all manufacturing employees in their roles.
  • Lack of real time data impeded analysis and prediction for hedging in commodities market.
  • Inevitable human error in manufacturing and quality control due to analog processes.
  • No live data capture; inventory 'creation' within system averaged around 72 hours.

In strategizing user adoption, it was elemental to genuinely understand the manufacturing process in order to effectively prototype and test interfaces and changes, yet maintain outputs in a 24 hour production setting. In order for the ERP to succeed as an integration, many aspects of the business processes would have to be altered in coordination with the digital artifacts and software we designed for particular processes as we integrated systems in parallel deployments.

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For example, I thought it best to approach the data flows during the manufacturing processes as a 'zero touch' implementations; utilizing interchangeable touch screen and barcode scanners to navigate interfaces and carry out tasks, and then generate an RFID thermal label printer system. This required extensive time working alongside employees, and bridging the divide between employees and the development team in order to agilely develop these custom interfaces throughout the parallel deployments.

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An example of manual processes before intervention.

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Proposed version of  touch screen process intervention.

As I began working alongside employees in the initial inventory creation points, I realized there was a lack of a coherent warehouse layout and inventory system. This environment compounded many of the issues we identified farther along in the manufacturing processes as well as impeded data flow and greatly complicated inventory audits. After approaching management and explaining the barriers, I worked with the floor employees through workshops and set out to design a layout that could be rapidly standardized before beginning the ERP intervention in the inventory process. This new inventory layout would also provide a "heatmap" of inventory location corresponding to the stored data in the RFID barcodes as soon as the adoption began.​

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During the research and prototyping stage, I identified steps that could be automated through digital interventions such as barcode scanners, integrating the scales digitally, and using screens on the forklifts. These processes were tested both in day and night shifts and modified with input from the users continually. Several architectural and infrastructure elements were added such as antennae, network cable, and RFID integrations. 

Key Results
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  • Full lifecycle deployment of ERP and digital interventions in processes.
  • Complete integration of manufacturing processes into ERP and data ecosystem.
  • Redesign and automation of many business processes;  including inventory and quality control.
  • Developed onsite database architecture and cloud solutions for competitive use of data in commodities business model.
  • Zero touch & automated deployments of user experience.
  • Despite testing, interventions and deployments, profit sharing for hourly manufacturing employees in 2019 exceeded the previous three years combined.
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