Integrating Strategies:
The ISO-Lean-ERP Solution

Today’s businessperson is faced with a veritable alphabet soup of acronyms, fads, and methods, all competing with one another and each claiming to be the definitive way to improve operations and increase profits. I submit that rather than look for the next new thing, companies would be best served by implementing a combination of three tried-and-true strategies: ISO 9001, lean manufacturing, and ERP. These three strategies are not only compatible, but together they create a synergy. By utilizing these strategies, companies can overcome challenges and satisfy customers. The ultimate result is profit.

ISO 9001 focuses on reducing defects in products and services through a rigorous analysis of the company’s system and processes. The benefits of ISO 9001 are manifold and ensure that a company has a quality system in place and is using that system.

The heart of the lean manufacturing approach is the continual elimination of waste, which enables companies to supply products and services better, faster and cheaper. Consider some of lean manufacturing’s benefits: higher quality products, more efficient space utilization, and reduced inventory.

ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems were originally extensions of MRP II systems. MRP was more focused on using computer software to track and manage the inventory and production side of operations, while today’s ERP tracks financial operations as well. ERP consists of three things: computer, software, and people.

ISO, lean manufacturing, and ERP address in a unique way three common challenges, thus giving employees the tools to give customers what they want. Today’s customers want the same things they’ve always wanted. The most common challenges companies face are also the three direct obstacles to giving customers what they want:

What Customers Want <-> What Companies Face

How ISO, Lean and ERP Can Be Integrated
to Meet the Challenges

Challenge #1--Long Lead Times (Customer wants fast delivery):

• ISO enables a company to understand how its system and processes work, which leads to streamlining and making it more efficient.
• Lean generates continuous, small-lot production.
• ERP provides an accurate and accessible flow of information making it easier for each department to retrieve; therefore, the order can go through faster. Each strategy shortens the lead-time.

Challenge #2--Uncompetitive Costs (Customer wants a good cost value):

• ISO requires continuous improvement, which means companies end up with less scrap and less defective product.
• Lean requires a reduction in inventory and in non-value-added effort. These reductions result in reductions in cost.
• ERP outputs the information companies need for more efficient and accurate planning and ordering, thus cutting costs.

Challenge #3--Inconsistent Quality (Customer wants high quality consistently):

• The most fundamental goal of ISO is quality, and when companies implement ISO properly, they meet, and exceed, that goal.
• Lean manufacturing enables companies to control the workflow so that a process or a machine is never allowed to pass on a known defect.
• ERP is an information management system that enables companies to control data integrity.

How the Three Strategies Interface

ISO requires companies to look at all their processes, see how they work, and continually improve them. Lean and ERP implementations are also easier when you start out with an understanding of how your system really works. ISO requires continuous improvement, which is also the goal of Lean, and working on customer service, which ERP is essential for. Each has different perspectives. ERP has a computer perspective, ISO has a process perspective, and Lean has a small-lot production perspective. However, the number-one goal of each of these processes is to satisfy the customer.