CLIENT OBJECTIVE
CTI Plastics is a manufacturer of plastic molded pots. They manufacture overseas and distribute to both multinational organizations like Home Depot and smaller greenhouses throughout the world. CTI Plastics’ business is a high volume, low margin business that requires accuracy and efficiency to remain competitive in the market. Achieving the desired efficiency required a specialized workflow management system that could integrate design, quotes, ordering, manufacturing, ocean container shipping, and land delivery. This fully integrated system was needed to create operational efficiency and accuracy to beat out the competitors.
CHALLENGE
CTI Plastics was having challenges with their current software vendor. The vender did not “get” the business or their processes and therefore were not providing the kinds of software solutions necessary to help CTI Plastics compete. Issues were not getting resolved effectively and the systems built were not reliable as well as were causing costly order mistakes.
SOLUTIONS
To help CTI Plastics get the needed advantages out of the system, the JIG business analysts sat down with CTI Plastics to determine the key functional issues. These were prioritized and addressed immediately ensuring a smooth operation. Once stabilized, the next priority was to document CTI Plastics business goals so that the technology could be approached in a strategic way. From this, thorough requirements were gathered which allowed us to create the system on paper through storyboarding and use cases. The paper system was instrumental in discovering the best systems and integrations that worked for all parts of the business in a cost-effective way. It is far less expensive to change a requirement on paper than in an implemented system.
This exercise allowed for the business to truly understand what they were getting and to test each interdependency before the system build process took place. In this way, the system was approached strategically, in a multi-year phased approach avoiding very costly wrong turns.