Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely necessary
Review: This book is a journey of about a year and a quarter into the ERP market through the eyes of a hypothetical company BGSoft and its implementation partner KPI Solutions. Scott the CEO of BGSoft is a visionary who delivers business results for his clients through his ERP software. Lenny the head of Development, Gail his marketing chief and Maggie of KPI are the other key players in this novel. Like any other technology company BGSoft faces the uphill task of growing 40 % every year if it has to keep the analysts happy and retain its stock price. It is a key player in the ERP market and its customers are primarily Fortune 1000 companies who can afford the investments and fuel the growth that BGSoft is aiming at. Suddenly Scott realizes that most of the big companies have already adopted ERP and their next best bet is to look for mid size companies. If there are no more deer left in the forest then one has to go after the rabbits. Hunting for rabbits needs the same effort and results in lesser meat per win. Can BGSoff continue to grow at the same rate? Now there is an unusual call from Craig, CEO of Pierco one of BGSoft's largest customers. Thanks to a new Director, his Board has asked him to justify the investment that he has made in ERP. Call it by whatever name or any flavor of the latest technology jargon, the Board wants to know the impact on two important measures - top line and bottom line. The story now takes a very interesting turn, turning away from the routine issues of features, schedules, budgets, bugs, staffing and project management that are characteristic of any ERP company. The primary issue then becomes delivering true business value that customers can get from IT solutions rather than implementing software from leading vendors on fancy technologies.
Once again, it is worthwhile to mention - Top line and Bottom line - what comes in from the customers and what is retained for the shareholders. Get this right or get out of here is the message for all CEOs. BGSoft now sees a paradigm shift - they need to sell value and not just software. ERP implementations are typically seen as automating data flow across different functions in an organization. True, it enables to break walls within but sadly the rules of the game continue to remain unchanged, defeating the purpose of better information flow. Technology is necessary, but not sufficient is the core theme of this book. In the process of helping Craig to find justification for his investment in BGSoft' ERP, we get a deep inside view of Pierco's operations. Excess inventory, production bottlenecks and plenty of infighting between functions who are expected to work towards common goals. Performance measures continue to aim at locally optimal solutions ignoring the final impact on customer service. Scott is quick to introduce the concepts of TOC- Drum-Buffer Rope method and Buffer management in Pierco. This releases forty percent capacity but causes an unexpected problem- plenty of inventory. TOC concept is then extended to distribution and soon across the entire operations of Pierco. Inventory is kept close to the plant and shipments to warehouses are based on replenishment of actual sales. The entire process shifts from "Push" to "Pull". The results are dramatic. Craig is celebrating! Craig calls on Scott and Maggie with a proposal to extend the solution to all his vendors and clients. Internet technologies would help. He is keen to focus on his business and not worry about software, hardware, upgrades and the hassles of the IT function. If KPI could help him, he is willing to part with half a percent of his revenues for the services to begin with and then it would jump to one percent a year. Focus on results for the business, and keep the software simple. Do not allow the tendency of adding feature after feature to complicate the ERP. Extend the solution across the entire supply chain to service the end customer as one logical entity. The top line and bottom line would head north, is a very clear message from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Thought Provoking
Review: To say that there's nothing of value here is incorrect. True, it helps to have read The Goal. Not only is an explanation of drum-buffer-rope needed, so is a definition of Murphy. No doubt this alienates the uninitiated, as might the book's meandering plot. However, there are a few ideas here that are pure gold. One such idea is that using technology to add value by increasing capacity only improves net income when overhead is cut. I have personally seen ERP value proposition spreadsheets that haphazardly combine income statement and capacity improvements to arrive at a total "value created" number for the client. Capacity improvements are a means to value creation, not an end. Technology firms that misunderstand this will have problems cost justifying their solutions to their clients. They should read this book. Another golden idea is that technology deployment is only one part of the business improvement process. The other (perhaps more important) part of the process comes from changing the success metrics surrounding the area that deploys the technology. For example, if Tyson pays its plant managers to maximize efficiencies, it's natural that they will increase the chicken supply regardless of expected demand, burning cash in the process. Accordingly, technology driven capacity increases will drive up finished goods inventories unless firms change the way they reward their plant managers. This book has bold implications for CPFR software users. How likely is it that plant managers at the top of the supply-chain will do what's in the best interest of the entire supply-chain if doing so makes them look like they are doing a poor job? Not many. And what if the members of a given supply-chain are different companies, with different lending ratios, stock prices, industry benchmarks, and so on? And whose customer is the end-user anyway? Thought provoking. If anything, the book educates supply-chain students that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Sure it's fun to think theoretically about supply-chain management, but the real world is a cruel mistress. This book reminds us that if CPFR and ERP were such a great ideas, then there would be no unprofitable vertically integrated companies. Reason enough to buy the book.
Rating:
Summary: NBNS is necessary
Review: We have been hearing about the technological provess of the ERP systems that the market leaders are offering. Still, there are many clients who have not got the promised/desired results from the ERP. Why ? Is it b'cos of the ERP package or the implementation team ? ERP/APS alone is no panacea... Goldratt & his co-authors have struck at this very right point in NBNS. It says Technology is Necessary, But not sufficient. We need something more. We need to relook at our business rules, measurement indices when we go for the techno-solutions. The transformation of ERP/APS and the implementation team itself from a mere business/techno-solution provider to a bottom-line improvement enabler is etched very well. The importance of revising measurement indices like "throughput-dollar-days" & "inventory-dollar-days" is explained in very simple and wonderful manner. Certainly, a recommended read !
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