Case 1: raw material inventory management of a well-known flour mill in Guangzhou
The factory has always attached great importance to the management of raw material procurement. In the early years, ERP management was introduced, and a joint meeting of sales, production and procurement was held every month to make a plan for sales, production and raw material procurement. However, the purchasing department strives to meet the demand of the production department, controlling the inventory under two months' production consumption, and greatly reducing the cost of raw materials.
However, since the second half of 2000, wheat prices at home and abroad have risen sharply, with an increase of nearly 30% within one year. However, due to fierce market competition, the price of flour products cannot be raised at the same time. In order to maintain its business and market share, factories have to buy raw materials with higher prices, and at the same time produce and sell products with relatively lower prices. The more it produces and sells, the more it loses, resulting in serious losses in that year.
Case 2: Material Inventory Management of Baiyan Grain and Oil Industry Company.
Bai Yan Flour Factory, which is also a grain industry, also attaches great importance to the management of raw material procurement and inventory, but they are not rigidly bound by the principle of ERP. They also have a similar joint meeting every month to discuss the sales-production-purchasing plan, but the most important content of the meeting is to analyze the price trend of wheat raw materials and make purchasing decisions according to the analysis conclusions (please note: Bai Yan Company does not make purchasing plans according to the production plan! )。 When it is judged that the price of raw materials will rise, they will increase the purchase volume and increase the inventory; Instead, gradually reduce inventory.
The company's raw material warehouse has a capacity of 30,000 tons, and Man Cang can meet the production consumption for six months. In the years when the price of wheat rose sharply, such as 65,438+0,994,2000, Bai Yan's stock exceeded that of Man Cang, and the warehouse was not enough, so it tried its best to set up a temporary "tent warehouse" between the warehouse and the workshop aisle, and sometimes dozens of grain delivery captains lined up near the dock to wait for unloading, which virtually acted as a temporary warehouse.
It is through this unique skill of raw material management of "absorbing at a low price, waiting for the price to be sold" that Bai Yan Company has not only been able to weather the impact of raw material fluctuation safely in the past ten years, but also obtained rich price difference profits from it.
This is the victory of ERP management based on business strategy in Bai Yan, and simply implementing ERP management will definitely not work.
Case study:
These two cases are ERP management based on enterprise strategy. Their success or failure tells us that ERP is not a panacea for all diseases, but a management idea and method based on statistical technology. By accurately and timely inputting some data generated in the actual operation of the enterprise into the system, various statistical reports in the operation of the enterprise can be obtained. It is the value and mission of ERP to scientifically analyze these data and statements to provide reference and basis for decision-making.
In both cases, managers use ERP to manage raw material inventory. I think the failure of 1 is that it relies too much on ERP and ignores the importance of decision-making. Any ERP software, including the ERP management theory itself, will not tell the enterprise what kind of decision to make intuitively. The only thing it can do is to dedicate data to enterprises-data that records and shows changes in internal and external environment. As for how to read these data and how to deal with these changes, that is the category of management, which depends on the ability and wisdom of decision makers to master and control.
Decision-making runs through the whole process of management, and the success or failure of management depends on the correctness of decision-making first. If the decision is wrong, no matter how good the management and system are, the quality of the decision also depends on the quality and quantity of information. Correct, timely and appropriate information is fundamental to reduce uncertainty, and information system is the carrier of providing, processing and disseminating information, so it can be said that the support of information system for management function is, in the final analysis, the support for decision-making.
In the case 1, the conclusion that raw materials increased by 30% was reached, but no systematic decision was made around this conclusion to deal with this change. Case 2 "Analyze the price trend of wheat raw materials and make purchasing decisions according to the analysis conclusions". When the price trend of raw materials is obtained, the increased cost of hoarding raw materials is compared with the increased cost of material price increase, so-"when it is judged that raw materials are going to increase prices, it will increase procurement and increase inventory; On the contrary, it will gradually reduce the inventory ","not only can we safely survive the impact brought by the fluctuation of raw materials, but also get rich spread profits from it ".
In fact, we can get the answer by comparing two cases: the victory of ERP management based on business strategy is definitely not achieved by simply implementing ERP management. Unfortunately, many business leaders who implement ERP do not understand this. They unilaterally think that everything will be fine with ERP. If there is no OK, it must be a problem that ERP is not implemented well, or a software problem. Everyone knows that "leadership" is not only the decisive factor of ERP implementation, but also the decisive factor of enterprise management. Leaders without decision-making wisdom and courage will be full of thorns and difficulties on the road to successful ERP implementation.