We were primary a manual data collection facility. That is a stream of tags, reports, & data collection forms, would flow to the production office for input to the new ERP system. As part of the implementation we had consolidated multiple material master files (which had duplicate material numbers). In doing so some materials had to be renumbered. This mean that we needed to printed out material count sheets for the month-end inventory count. We even issued count sheets by location to assist the count personnel in their work. As part of the set up for the count we collected all the old forms for the physical count, and issued the new ones.
For the first three counts we got back a mix of the old & new forms. Getting tired of have to reinterpret the old forms we made a concerted effort to go around to every office, desk, and draw in the facility to retrieve the old forms. None of the old forms were available for use.
The next count also returned a mixture of the old & the new count forms. In fact the old count forms showed materials that we had stopped producing years ago. The forms where older than the oldest forms we had ever collected. Apparently, some of the count team had forms stored at home “just in case”. We eventually did get all the old forms collected and destroyed, and the new procedure became just the way of doing business.
Existing procedures can be very hard to change, people are resistant to change. Be prepared for the old procedures to be active along side the new procedures until everyone is comfortable with the new activities & procedures.
