Project Health Check: Warehouse Management System Revival
The client is a leading Australian retail business with operations across the country. Known for its commitment to fresh produce, the client has a dedicated food production division responsible for creating ready-made meals distributed to retail outlets nationwide.
Business Challenge
- Insufficient project controls and documentation
- Poor visibility across critical business processes
- Issues around stakeholder and vendor accountability.
Solution
Having previously delivered successful projects within the division, Protegic was engaged to conduct a thorough Post Implementation Review (PIR) of the failed initiative, followed by a comprehensive Health Check to determine if and how the project could be successfully revived.
The Protegic team:
- Engaged key project stakeholders and vendors through discovery sessions to thoroughly understand the project's status and relative health.
- Examined key artefacts and assessed the quality and progress of deliverables.
- Reviewed and validated discovery findings with stakeholders.
- Delivered a detailed Project Health Report and Remediation Recommendation Plan (RRP).
Based on the findings, Protegic proposed a new delivery approach that included:
- Enhanced support for process mapping and business requirements documentation.
- A comprehensive testing strategy with dedicated resources to lead the test stream.
- Additional focus on training—addressing system usage and behavioural acceptance of new business processes and ways of working.
The revised approach removed the need for third-party consultation by effectively utilising the client's internal business resources, supplemented with Protegic's project management expertise, business analysis, and testing capabilities.
Outcomes Achieved
The project was delivered successfully, with the following outcomes:
- Implementation completed under budget, allowing allocation of remaining funds toward system enhancements.
- Significant labour savings through reduction in stock control activities, estimated at $330,000-$660,000 annually
- Real-time inventory management provides instant stock position visibility, improving procurement accuracy.
- Reduced wastage through improved FIFO (First In, First Out) management of perishable goods.
- Enhanced system-generated reporting replaces manual processes.
- The automated goods receiving process saves approximately one hour per truck (across an average of 15 trucks daily).
- Improved the accuracy of stocktake operations by switching from manual to system-managed processes.
- Successful integration of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) capabilities, enabling automated shipping notices and invoicing.
- Transformation of the finance function from cost calculator to cost analyser.
- Elimination of duplicate data entry across multiple systems.
