New Systems Help Work Flow More Smoothly at Moen

Does your kitchen sink have a single-handle faucet or two faucets? If it's one with a single handle, it was invented in 1939 by Al Moen, founder of Moen, Incorporated, the number one faucet brand in North America. Based in North Olmsted, Ohio, Moen manufactures and sells a wide range of kitchen and bath products, including sinks, showerheads, and numerous accessories. New products are constantly being launched, and each requires numerous capital expense requests throughout the product development process.

Moen has three manufacturing facilities in the U.S. and one in China, as well as two distribution facilities in the U.S., one in China, and one in Canada and Mexico. The company had implemented a single instance of the SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system for nearly every line of its business worldwide, including supply chain, sales, service, and manufacturing. As a result, many of Moen's automated business processes were streamlined and efficient. Until recently, the process for initiating a capital expense request was one of the exceptions.

Moen's process to initiate a capital expense request (CER) was heavily manual. First, a user submitted a paper form that was routed manually through the corporate office from inbox to inbox to obtain the proper supporting documentation and approvals. The exact route differed, depending on factors such as type and amount of funds requested, department of origin, and level of approval needed. This process was very inefficient and uncertain. Among Moen's 300 employees involved in the capital expense request process, only a few outside of the finance department understood where and how the request was being routed. Finance would know if required approvals were insufficient, but getting to that department involved a great deal of guesswork from people who weren't sure of exactly where a form needed to go. Manually-routed documents could be easily lost or misplaced, leaving the other people along the approval chain completely unaware of the request. Making matters worse, CERs originating in Moen's Chinese manufacturing facility had to be mailed to the corporate office, increasing chances of getting lost. The recipient of these overseas requests couldn't just walk down the hallway to ask the sender a question.

Moen needed a solution that automated business form development and routing and that could easily integrate with its global SAP ERP system and support yearly upgrades to the SAP software. There were other requirements: The system had to be easy to use, with business users capable of automating select processes with a minimum of IT support. The solution also had to easily integrate with Microsoft SharePoint, which was supporting other internal Moen processes. And management did not want to limit the solution to CERs; it wanted the selected tool to automate other processes as well.

With assistance from Clear Process Solutions as consultants, Moen selected Winshuttle workflow software in November 2013. Winshuttle enables users to build and adapt Excel and SharePoint-based interactive forms and workflows for SAP without costly custom development and without compromising on security or control. The software integrates easily with both SharePoint and SAP, and can be tailored to Moen's processes. It is able to provide complete visibility into exactly where a request is located within the routing process.

It took five months to implement Winshuttle. During that time, users were given training classes on how to build a workflow using the software. Gina Carlson, Moen's Director of Asia Pacific Customer Relationship and Financial Systems, also instituted a formal communication plan with additional training documents, Webinars, and IT town halls.

Before automation, the CER process took anywhere from four to ten business days, depending on the number of approvals required. After Winshuttle was implemented, even complex and high-profile CERs can be processed in one to two business days. Moen is able to see the status of a particular CER at any point in the processing cycle. Carlson and her colleagues are able to know at any time where a specific funding request is in the pipeline, who has seen it, and who needs to approve it.

Within the first month after the system went live, almost 70 Moen employees used the new automated CER process. With management anticipating savings from automating CER of two hours per person, the project is expected to pay for itself within three months. The days of tracking down paper-based forms at Moen are coming to an end.

Sources: Ken Murphy, "Capital Request Processes Now Flow as Smoothly as Water from a New Faucet," SAP Insider Profiles, July-September 2014; www.moen.com, accessed September 8, 2014; and www.winshuttle.com, accessed September 8, 2014.

The experience of Moen illustrates some of the steps required to design and build new information systems. Building a new system for processing capital expense requests entailed analyzing the organization's problems with existing systems, assessing information requirements, selecting appropriate technology, and redesigning business processes and jobs. Management had to oversee the systems-building effort and evaluate benefits and costs. The new information system represented a process of planned organizational change.

The chapter-opening case calls attention to important points raised by this case and this chapter. Moen's process for handling capital expense requests was hampered by outdated and inefficient manual processes, which raised costs, slowed down work, and limited the company's ability to develop new products.

Management decided to redesign and automate this process using new workflow software that enables users to create interactive forms and workflows for SAP without costly custom development. The solution encompassed not just the application of new technology, but changes to corporate culture, business processes, and job functions. Moen's pace of work and approvals for new capital expenditures have become much faster.

Here are some questions to think about: Why was Winshuttle software a good choice for Moen? How much did the new system change the way Moen ran its business?