Consultants – Know Them and Survive!
One of the joys of being in the world of operations management is dealing with consultants. There are two major categories: the software consultant and the operations/strategy consultant. They are different animals and must be handled with care and wisdom, but you can survive the experience and even prosper.
The Software Consultant
Software consultants are usually employed by major software companies – their job is to help you implement their software. Broadly speaking, there are two types of this first category of consultant: the module mechanic and the more seasoned operations or business type.
The Module mechanics are usually freshly out of school and have been trained intensively in how a particular module – SAP finance or BOM – works. They will be responsible for configuring the module based on their own requirements; they’re smart about the software and confident in what it can do. They invariably let you know that all you need to do to be successful is use the system in a vanilla fashion. They will also work many hours to make things happen for you. Most of them, however, have little or no actual floor or operational experience. They may have done several implementations but have not been a real user. Pick their brains about how they system works – they willo take great pride in showing you all sorts of module capabilities. Learn the system from them, but understand they know little about the real world and making things happen. (more…)