In our last newsletter, we shared more about the upcoming steps in our new system—ERP, Project Mercury, and the journey. We are another few months into the Program, so here is an update on progress.

On February 20, the internal team representing all of our various processes, Process Owners, assembled in Dallas to participate in a workshop where each presented their area’s storyboard, which is a process definition of what we want the new ERP to be able to do. We could further detail and define handoffs and data elements that cross-process steps. For example, inventory movements and cost calculations eventually impact accounting and cash flow. Each of the Process Owners expressed the value of obtaining a greater understanding of each legacy company’s process, which will be a foundation for implementation of our combined and optimized processes.

These Storyboards are now being used as the guide and roadmap for our potential software vendors’ external implementation partners. They are the design for how our top-shelf processes will be configured and implemented in the new software solution.

We are approaching the completion of selecting our optimal software solution and implementation partner. That will be complete in the next few weeks, and then we will kick off configuration, testing, training, and data conversion.

We have also started evaluating and cleaning up our existing data. One area of focus will be standardizing the numbering and descriptions of customers, items, services, and vendors.

We have tremendous momentum and are excited about our progress. We will continue sharing progress news via our newsletter and town hall meetings.