A “Decision Driver” is an idea, concept, or issue, that is both critical to the business and a uniquely differentiating feature between software solutions under consideration.

In all, there are over 100 key requirements that Clear Select considers Key Decision Drivers.  The potential top ten to fifteen are identified by Clear Select during Phase 1 & 2 from interviews, process evaluations, and requirements gathering.  The client's selection team determines the final decision drivers to send to the long list of vendors. Vendors' responses to the Key Decision Drivers are used to select the contenders from the candidate long list of vendors.  Contenders go on to the scripted demos in Phase 3 Examinations.

The following are examples of Key Decision Drivers for a recent Clear Select client and your KDDs will be determined by the business processes, industry, and unique products, services, customer relationships and vendor relationships of your business model as it relates to Enterprise Resource Management, Customer Relationship Management, Supply Chain Management, Product Life Cycle Management, and other business technology funtions as can be determined using Clear Select's expertise.

1.      Mixed Mode Manufacturing

Background:  CLIENT creates hundreds of manufacturing orders per month of which 90% are for batch / process chemicals.  However, 10% of the manufacturing (shop) orders are for special equipment and parts.

 Decision Driver: 

• The manufacturing system needs to provide both batch / formula management and discrete BOM’s and shop orders.  The discrete shop orders (Special Equipment) need to support serialization of the finished-good, which will be utilized in the field service application.

2.      Customer and Product Line P&L 

Background:  Customer profitability analysis is a key requirement of the new system for CLIENT, as it is a key to Client's future success and growth plans.  Also, product lines cut across the various finished good offerings.  Presently, the profitability of the various product lines is calculated manually (in spreadsheets).

Decision Driver: 

• The ability to report customer and product line profit and loss statements, which includes the ability to allocate both revenues and costs to a specific product line via sub-ledgers (or unit codes, or product codes, etc.).  Some costs / revenues may be tracked directly (e.g., Field Service travel costs), and other costs will need to be allocated (e.g., field service time reporting).

3.      Multi-Company and Multi-Plant Financials

Background:  CLIENT tabulates the Profit / Loss for five divisions of which one is "other".  In the future, there may be a need to track the “other divisions” (product lines) as separate businesses.

 Decision Driver: 

• The ability to track the each division’s financials in the chart of accounts without the need to create a separate database.
• The ability to record and report plant profit and loss statements, without the need for a separate database.
• The ability to share purchased raw materials between divisions.

4.      Multi-Plant Customer Service, and Planning

Background:  Presently, CLIENT has three manufacturing facilities, and one raw material / finished goods warehouse, and a contract supplier on the West Coast.  Also, CLIENT has plans to expand to over the next few years and may require East Coast manufacturing capabilities.

 Decision Driver: 

• A.  Customer Service:  The ability to have centralized order processing.  Customers ship-to address and specific finished good item number need to be linked to a primary supply warehouse or plant.  Customers may order products from more than one division on the same customer order.  The customer service person should not have to enter the “supply” plant code nor should they need to enter into a specific order entry screen / form for the supply plant/warehouse.
• B.  Planning:  The system should facilitate centralized planning.  The planning tool should allow for multiple plants / warehouse requirements. This implies the capability to plan finished good inventories across multiple warehouses/plants or Distribution Requirements Planning (DRP), e.g., Chicago supplies the California warehouse.

5.      Supply Chain - Advanced Planning and Scheduling (APS) 

Background:  Client's product mix is complicated because it can be shipped in many different size containers and it could be shipped from different finished goods warehouses or plants.  CLIENT utilizes Excel to determine the least cost supply chain for each customer (ad-hoc).

 Decision Driver: 

• A linear programming based least cost-planning module that will consider:  multiple sizes for finished goods containers, multiple manufacturing facilities, multiple raw material costs, multiple shipping costs, and possibly multiple formulations.

6.      Process Industry “BOM” and Production Reporting

Background:  CLIENT has most of the typical process industry reporting requirements, which then require specific capabilities of the ERP.

 Decision Driver: 

• The ability to create a “formula” master.  Ingredients (BOM), and recipe instructions (routing) should be in one master file, not separate routing and BOM.
• The ability to change the formula automatically based on the potency of various ingredients.
• The ability to setup multiple item / pack relationships for each batch.

7.      Inventory Lot Quality Information and Date Tracking

Background:  CLIENT needs to track specific quality information about each lot.  This information could be a subjective classification, specific attributes (color, odor, etc.), or test results (e.g., PH, microbes, etc.).  Also, it is important to understand the expiration date of each lot / batch.

 Decision Driver: 

• The ability to attach a specifications or multiple user defined attributes to an inventory lot and formula.
• The ability to attach test results to an inventory lot record.
• The ability to track the expiration date by lot number of all inventory items, both finished goods and raw materials.
• Lot genealogy:  lot controlled finished goods can track back to raw materials and test results (need to be able to turn this on / off by item).

8.      Pricing

Background:  CLIENT has multiple pricing methods.  All pricing is by product and customer or customer category specific. Some customer’s work off a contract price, others work off of a simple list and discount, and other have a cost guarantee.

 Decision Driver: 

• The ability to setup and maintain a customer ship-to / product pricing matrix.  A customer may have the same price for all ship-to’s except one location, which may have the same price except for one item.
• The ability to setup two different pricing matrixes based on who pays the freight.  One matrix for FOB shipping point and one matrix for FOB CLIENT.
• The ability to setup and maintain customer contract pricing (the ability to automatically increase pricing on a date specific to each contract).
• The ability to setup and maintain cost guarantees where the customer is invoiced based on percent of sales or their production volume.  This will require a “credit” journal entry at the time of invoicing (need to clean up A/R for non-invoiced).

9.  Field Service

Background:  CLIENT has 5-10 Special Product Service people who trouble shoot and maintain the existing Special Product equipment at customer sites.  The Special Product system is critical to the success of CLIENT with each customer.  This equipment monitors the washers and delivers the required chemicals to each washer as required by formula.

 Decision Driver:

• Ability to log customer complaints / calls into a database (e.g., CRM-like)
• Creation of a work order for Special Product service requests.
• Special Product history of repairs (from work orders above) by customer by machine serial number.
• Special Product inventory tracking of spare parts at the customer location.
• Special Product preventative maintenance program, which is developed from the history of repairs and generates a work orders.
• Returns Processing:  Need the ability to track returned Special Product parts and refurbish.  Need to credit each customer P/L for the returned parts that can be repaired.

10.  Unit of Measure

Background:  CLIENT is primarily a process manufacturer, which requires the ability to track inventory by containers, pounds, and gallons. 

Decision Driver: 

• Unit of Measure conversion for items in inventory: containers, pounds and gallons.

11.  Consignment Inventories

Background:  CLIENT may store inventories at customer sites and invoice when consumed.

 Decision Driver:

• Ability to setup customer warehouses.
• Ability to track inventories at the customer warehouses (e.g., automatically increase inventory at the time of shipment).
• Ability to create invoices from a monthly physical inventory performed by the field service.