Kesuan forging post-pandemic comeback with Monitor ERP
In the last few months, the world we once knew, has changed. Decades of digital transformation has taken place within a span of these few months. Even without a pandemic, companies cannot avoid volatility and uncertainty as economic downturns are difficult to forecast. However, Kesuan is among those companies that had the sense of urgency to take decisive actions to incorporate resiliency into their value chains, even before the crisis unfolded
Kesuan Engineering (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. was established in 1994. As a custom manufacturer, they produce machine parts such as mild steel, stainless steel, brass, aluminum, copper, plastics, and cast iron for switchgears, lighting, automotive and other industries. Kesuan has demonstrated its commitment to continuous process improvement and world-class product quality with internationally-recognized ISO 9001 Quality Management System and ISO 14001 Environmental Management System certifications.
On July 3, 2020, Kesuan celebrated a successful implementation of MONITOR ERP. We spoke to Kesuan Executive Director, Lee Chin Joon, and Monitor Business Consultant, Peter Choo, to get an inside story of this great milestone.
Both teams understand that success of this implementation does not happen overnight. The project kicked off in January, but was forced to come to a halt when Movement Control Order (MCO) took effect in March, then resumed in May when the economic sectors reopened. And, finally harvested a successful go-live of Monitor ERP in July.
Lee Chin Joon, Kesuan Executive Director and ERP Project Manager, describes how the pandemic has affected the business. “Like many others, our business has been severely impacted by the pandemic. The MCO has caused shutdown of our business in March and April, which is the last quarter of our fiscal year. Revenue loss was enormous for this last quarter even though we have obtained the approval from Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) to recommence our business operations. During this period, most of our customers have not resumed their business, hence, no delivery can be made. New inflow of orders is still slow until now. Hopefully the economy can get back on track gradually by the end of this year.”
He believes that by having Monitor ERP System in place helps increase his operational performance. “The main factors that have contributed to implementing Monitor are to improve our process flow to achieve higher on-time delivery rates, maximize profits, minimize costs, and to have a system that enables us to monitor our business operations.”
The reason we chose Monitor is because the system is tailor-made for manufacturing companies and Monitor has a great reputation as thousands of manufacturers around the world are using it.
Peter throws light on the main problems Kesuan faced, and challenges Monitor consultants faced in this project, he said, “At Kesuan, there were a lot of manual work involved and there was no integration between departments such as sales, purchase, and manufacturing. What is most challenging for a consultant, is to educate users about the concept of material requirements planning (MRP) as Kesuan is not exposed to any ERP systems before. This requires longer time for training including a refresher course. Besides that, we have also allocated additional days to follow up with Kesuan after going live.”
“With Monitor, users gain higher transparency from one single source of truth as the system integrates various departments across the company in one system. Users can easily trace back to where the supply and demand come from with MRP and identify the quantity of raw materials needed,” he explained.
Lee highlighted, “The reason we chose Monitor is because the system is tailor-made for manufacturing companies and Monitor has a great reputation as thousands of manufacturers around the world are using it. The topmost important element is that Monitor has a complete set of modules for manufacturing businesses unlike our existing system which does not cover planning and scheduling.”
“The most important improvement that I hope for is the reduction in manual work. We are impressed by the MRP in Monitor that comes with manufacturing order (MO) suggestion & purchase order (PO) suggestion as users no longer need to manually figure out what to manufacture and purchase because it is all automated by the system,” he added.
The next frontier for many companies will be the development of operating models that embrace resilience in the new normal and to have elevating leaders like Lee, who played a huge role in mobilizing the company by setting clear priorities to ensure the success of the ERP implementation despite uncertain times.
Lee is satisfied with the experience Monitor consultant team has provided throughout the process. “I would say that my experience with Monitor has been great and it is a pleasure to work with them. The support and guidance provided by Peter & Wai Leng are top-notch.”
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