Consolidation project delivers a set of centralized, easy-to-use, cloud-based standard operating procedures.
A focus on innovation and technical expertise empowers Harvey Performance Company (Harvey) to continuously deliver high-quality precision tooling to their customers. Their products are used by customers in the manufacturing and metalworking industries – aerospace, medical, automotive, mold and die, defense, and energy – to help them solve their challenging machining requirements.
Harvey has undergone significant growth in recent years, including the acquisition of five companies, bringing together a diverse range of brands, locations, and IT systems. That growth led to a necessary project to integrate multiple ERP systems. Consolidating and streamlining standard operating procedures (SOP) and processes across the organization was part of the project.
Harvey fosters a culture of continuous improvement and has been able to harness its deep organizational knowledge with the help of Nintex Process Manager. The outcome has not only created a standardized and centralized repository for all company processes but has also enabled seamless knowledge sharing and training across the organization.
Ease of use led to widespread user adoption
Getting staff to use a new system is often one of the hardest components of any IT implementation. The IT team at Harvey was working with an aggressive project timeline and had to transition complex processes to a new system, across multiple locations, with varying levels and styles of documentation in use due to multiple acquisitions.
“User adoption is the biggest challenge we have when we implement new technology,” said Michael Murray, Vice President of IT, Harvey Performance Company. “Nintex Process Manager is one of two systems we have implemented that we have had no complaints about. It has been readily accepted and adopted throughout the organization.”
Some of the benefits standardizing and documenting processes have delivered as part of the SOP consolidation project have included:
- Consistency and streamlining the development and use of SOPs across the organization – all SOPs are now created using the same format and there is a single way of doing things.
- Easily being able to directly assign roles and responsibilities to specific users.
- Building and managing company standards on how to produce SOPs. For example, attachments are used as supporting – not primary – documents, and video or audio clips are kept short.
- Training materials can be used to strengthen the skills of current staff and quickly train new staff on how to use systems.
- Driving expertise and ownership across the organization and working with process champions when staff has specific areas of expertise.
Building processes that are clear, consistent, and easy to follow
The transition to a consolidated ERP solution provided the ideal opportunity to move SOP process documentation online. A good example of a process now accessible online organization-wide is creating new purchase orders (PO). As part of process standardization, all process flows are allowed a maximum of ten activities for any single process with a focus on instructions to be written. Images, videos, and notes can be included as attachments to help clearly outline how to raise a new PO.
“By taking a consistent approach that is fully documented and available online, we are now able to easily train our staff how to use our systems. A good example is when we have temporary staff, we are now able to quickly get them upskilled on our processes and completing work much faster than they could previously,” said Erica Forbes, Business System Analyst.
The new technology has allowed Harvey to build processes based on how teams work, with a deep understanding of company operations and transactions and correct terminology to explain processes central to user adoption. There is also the option to provide feedback in the system available to all users, which allows for a closed-loop approach to quality assurance. This approach has allowed for continuous improvement to be embedded where and how people work.
The result is a growing list of standardized, cloud-based, and hyperlinked resources that staff can use to complete their day-to-day work, readily accessible at any time. Processes outlining how to complete work are easy to find, and any updates can be done with full document audit controls in place – with no impact on users – they can still find what they need in the same central location.
Building better, faster, stronger, and more agile
The use of Process Manager may have started in manufacturing, but it has expanded into other areas of the organization. Harvey has well over 100 processes now documented and standardized with more to come. Now that standardization is in place, there are two goals. One is to build a better, faster, stronger, and more automated approach to current processes. The second is focused on expansion to even more areas of operation.
