Many quality initiatives hit wall of IT support. Process changes need system support to get it flow smoothly. And change agents like us can’t do much at IT related issues. Changing few fields in ERP in any organization needs many layers of authorizations. Discussing some key IT issues here.
1. Digitised data entry: We all want digitised entry of data in our system. No IT system is fully equipped in collecting data in digitised form as data is not standardised. Data is not tabular. We can also say nonstandard data is major restriction in free flow of data.
IT capabilities of various organizations are at different levels. Especially, Government organizations are lagging behind. Company mould their system based on external requirements which are difficult to control. Legal systems are very slow to adopt changes.
How to capture electricity bills , reimbursements, customer data , vendor data in our system from other system? Transactions count is very high and dream is to capture all transactions in standard fields.
2. Cross Functional integration: It is again a biggest challenge. If function count is high, integrating them is very difficult. It becomes never ended close loops. Clearing them can be a mess. It is only possible by seeing holistic picture interms of value they add. Managers may be hoarding NVAs. Unlocking value is possible by right designing the functions. IT function designer mainly stuck at functional boundaries.
3. MIS reports: Objective of any IT function or system is too give data insight. Hardly saw any IT system which can givecomplete organization picture in one screen on real time basis. Management wants complete information on their anroid phones. Quality person also get fired for non capabilities which are mainly IT should deliver. I many times developed KPI model in excel format but management used to reject it. Connecting balance score card with end-to-end KPI is major mess , hardly few organizations succeed.
4. Connecting external portals: Each organization uses own logic to develop portal. Extracting data from it in meaningful form is a challenge. Security of data is another issue. Whatever is the issue? EDI (electronic data flow ) is not very common practice now especially among organizations.
Hope IT people find some resolution of these standard issues so that quality people can deliver.
- Log in to post comments