When you implement a tool like frePPLe in your company, there are various aspects you need to take into account: budget, timeline, requirements, features, integration with your current system, and learning curve.

Fortunately, you’re not alone. Our team and our partner network have extensive experience with this kind of project and will assist you throughout the implementation. We run the process in 3 phases, 10 steps, as shown below.

In practice, some steps described here can be run in parallel to other steps. This is an indicative project map that we may tailor together.

Proof of Concept Phase

During this phase, we build a pilot project together. This is a first test in a dedicated environment.

-01. Kick-off

The first thing we will need to do together is determining what frePPLe can do for you. At that point, we discuss your feature requirements as well as recurrent pain points you encounter daily when planning your production and/or inventory. This way, we quickly identify which feature is the most important to you and how we can tailor it to your business needs. We then agree on a timeline, budget, and requirements so that everything is transparent from the start.

02. Data Collection

To make the most of frePPLe’s powerful capabilities, we will need to import healthy and clean data into the tool. As the saying goes, what goes around comes around.

How to go through this data collection process:

• Data requirements: We agree on which data and which format we need for the pilot project.
• Data gathering: Depending on your organization and its processes, you will need to involve various people. You might have everything at hand in Excel files on your machine. Or you might have to involve IT to extract data from your ERP or custom system.
• Data cleansing: It is highly probable that you’ll need to spend some time structuring and cleansing files before they’re ready to be uploaded. Don’t hesitate to ask for help from IT if needed.
• Data upload: This is where our team gets involved and guides you through the process.

03. Pilot Project

The proof of-concept is a pilot project designed to test the tool in a safe environment. For example, we can start with one assembly line, or one warehouse in your whole network. As the data have been previously extracted from your system and uploaded into frePPLe, we’re working on a static sample, so that it does not cause any unexpected changes in your current planning files.

This is when we start building a model together. As you will see in frePPLe, each item has a defined supply path. Based on your supply chain, we build a flexible model with you that addresses your business requirements. Together, we map the complex cases that give you a hard time every day. We want to automate these tasks in order to drastically reduce your time to plan.

04. Review

As we favor an agile approach, we review the proof of concept together at this point. This means we evaluate the results, expectations, gap analysis, and next steps.

In order to guide you through this whole phase, we provide a 2-day proof-of-concept project that we organize together, within the walls of your company or remotely. Contact us to learn more. 

Implementation Phase

That’s when we get ready to implement frePPLe at a bigger scale. It includes integrating data from your ERP system and working on necessary customizations.

05. Integration

At this stage, we connect your ERP data to frePPLe so that they flow both ways, which means that when you update a plan in frePPLe, it is also updated in your ERP and the other around.

FrePPLe is an open source tool. So far we have standard connectors for Odoo and Openbravo, both open source ERP software. Even with standard connectors though, some custom development will be needed depending on how your IT team configured the ERP.

06. Customization

While we integrate frePPLe to your ERP system, we also make sure you have all the features your planning process requires. It might involve some development and customization on our end based on what we identified during the gap analysis.

07. Review

Again, we review the advancement of the project together. We adjust if you need some changes or last tweaks.

Cutover Phase

08. User Training

We can provide functional and technical training to your team at various steps in the project.

In practice, it’s often an ongoing process. People who are involved in the project from the very start understand how the whole model is built and acquire substantial hands-on skills.

09. User Acceptance Testing

Before going live, we execute a very final test to fix bugs and glitches where needed. Anyone who objects to this project should speak now or forever hold their peace.

10. Go Live

Depending on the project complexity and scope, the go-live process can be multiple and gradual, technical and functional.

Congratulations, you did it! 

Do you need more information on how to implement frePPLe in your company? Simply drop us a line and we’ll quickly come back to you.