When It Slows Down The Pace Of Change: Upgrading Business Systems At Braebill Company Case Study

Main Points

Francis Braebill is the founder of the family business during the late 1800s and in 1929, his eldest son took over.
The Great Depression in 1932 led the company to declare bankruptcy.
The company manufactures several products including those that make use of diesel engines and gasoline, such as tractors, small farm equipment, and tractors.

Later, Gordon discovered a better position in the engine dynamo market.

The company’s vision is centered on innovation, passion, and customer satisfaction, and the management structure is focused on value streams.

Value streaming includes all kinds of engineering and manufacturing activities.

In answer to this business, the company implemented Lean Manufacturing.
Braebill was confronted with so much pressure from inexpensive overseas labor, growing demand for high quality products, and various environment-related concerns. This led the management to enforce change.

Lean Manufacturing was adopted to address the company’s production and financial problems.

Lean Manufacturing focuses on providing value to the clients by eradicating waste, aligning the company’s value chain, and simplifying the operations.

Lean Manufacturing has been a success but this brought problems to the IT Department.

Jim Farrel was hired as IT Director and found a number of inflexible legal systems containing complex coding and varies few useful documentations.

The management realized the need to update the system.

An Enterprise Resource Management (ERP) system was set to replace the existing system.
Adoption of the ERP system is essential in company’s success.
The company is confronted with the challenge of determining the kind of system that would offer the flexibility needed to adapt to and support the changes in the business process.

The company’s IT department knows nothing about the process.

Alternatives
The company’s IT department needs special training for them to be able to understand the new system that the management wants to implement.
The company has to conduct further examination of the systems and determine the functions and special roles it will bring to help ensure the company’s success.
The implementation of the ERP system has to be carefully studied, taking note on how it can possibly change the company’s current system in such a way that it will cater to the company’s objectives including eradicating waste, aligning the company’s value chain, and simplifying the operations.
Any redundancy in the system has to be addressed immediately and the system itself has to be monitored carefully and continually in order to eliminate undesirability.

Staff or department that will be assigned to handle the system should be trained well.

Recommended course of action
There are various systems that are used by companies nowadays. However, these systems are only managed by individuals who have the expertise. The problem in this case is when the individual assigned to operate the system decides to leave the company. This will generate problems to the company. If Braebill Company intends to reduce costs, it must eliminate unnecessary system by seeking other type of system that can perform several tasks. Such system must also enable training of various individuals to ensure that someone will have to take charge of its operation. The company must also eliminate systems that tend to overlap.