Implementing a new planning tool brings many changes in your organization:  new processes to be put in place, new applications to master, new skills to be learned, data to be collected or integrated, … All of these changes need to fit in the context of your timeline, budget and expected business goals.

Fortunately, you’re not alone in this process. Our team and our partner network have extensive experience with this kind of project and will assist you throughout entire journey.

Proof of concept phase

This is a short phase (typically 1 to 2 weeks) focused on proving the business case.

The activities involve:

• Map the as-is planning processes into to-be planning processes.
• Build and document a prototype with your data.
  A first frepple model is loaded with your data (typically on our cloud servers, but this can also be done on your servers).
  During a number of interactive sessions, users are guided through the application. The model can iteratively be refined to demonstrate various aspects of the business process and planning needs.
  The model is available to your team for a period of 3 months to explore and learn.
• Planning of the implementation phase and estimation of all efforts involved.

At the end of the proof of concept, your team should 1) feel comfortable that the software will achieve the desired business goals, and 2) have a clear understanding of the efforts and activities involved in the implementation pahse.

Implementation phase

In this phase the new planning tool and process are developed. Depending on the complexity and size of the business requirements this phase varies from 3 weeks (for out-of-the-box deployments where good quality data is available) to 3 months (when complex integrations or customizations are involved).

Activities involve:

• User training
• Development and testing of data interfaces between source systems and frepple
• Comparison with the previous planning tools and validation of the planning results
• Development and documentation of the new planning process
• Training and guidance on best practices for planning processes
• Advanced frepple configuration and tuning
• Development of frePPLe customizations
• If required, frePPLe core product features can be developed, sponsored by your project

Quite often this phase is split into smaller cycles/iterations: We start with a small core of functionality, and more complex features are added in each cycle. This allows your team to gradually learn and gain confidence in the new processes and tools.

Expert advice and assistance from the frePPLe team during this phase can drastically shorten the implementation timeline and keep the project on track.

Support phase

Your planning processes are an area of continuous ongoing improvements. As your business evolves over time, your planning process and tools must adapt dynamically in a dynamic environment.

This means:

• You may want to starting using features you didn’t need before
• Training may need to be repeated for new users or new functionality
• Custom reports may need to be added, changed or removed
• Customizations may be need to be added, changed or removed
• Data integrations can change as your IT landscape evolves
• Etc…

The frePPLe team supports you along your journey. Assuring that customers continue to fully achieve tangible business benefits from our software is extremely important to us.

We accommodate this with our “service package” methodology: you purchase a number of man-days of support, and can then easily call off from this package for any need.