“The senior management team chose to partner with Baker Tilly, a global business consulting and accounting firm, because its team was extremely experienced in helping enterprise-size businesses, like ours, undertake deep and broad deployments of Plex and in driving the right business outcomes.”
Integrating and Automating Operational Data
AAM, Baker Tilly, and the Plex product team worked through a proven methodology to design, implement, and train users on Plex. This plan included implementing Plex in parallel with AAM’s corporate Oracle ERP system for enterprise-wide financial consolidation and performance management.
Peter Pearce, Principal for Baker Tilly Business and Technology Growth Strategies said:
“One of the biggest challenges for this business unit is that it is very numbers driven. A great deal of this reporting was done manually but what it required in order to make better, faster, more informed business decisions was an integrated and automated way to gather operational data.
This deployment was one of the broadest we have ever overseen, incorporating all the core Plex capabilities such as inventory control on the shop floor to quality management and manufacturing performance.”
Baker Tilly spent a number of weeks developing a common model of deployment that was unique to AAM. This allowed AAM to roll-out Plex across the seven metal forming locations in a standardized way, mitigate risk, and “go live” as rapidly and efficiently as possible.
“This initial phase was a deeply immersive experience given that we included all process owners, allocating Plex modules to supervisors who would take responsibility for understanding the software’s capabilities and how it could deliver value,” explains Trathen. “Along the way we consulted with the Plex User Community and the team now sees them as a vital source of best practice on demand and an invaluable tool for continuous improvement.”
