Services

Our success is your self-sufficiency on SAP

Not every solution fits every business process. Not every consultant fits every customer culture.

It is important to NB Consulting that our consultants have project experience not confined to a limited number of industries and company sizes.  The best business process solutions come from consultants who have worked in a wide breadth of industries and company size.  When asked “How does everyone else do it?”, we can answer with multiple examples.

Some consultants work best in small company cultures where they will be the only consultant in an area. Others work well on big teams.  Of course, we prefer the well-rounded consultant who can work anywhere, anytime with anyone to success.

The reality is, although consultants might have the experience your project needs, not all of them have the right personality.

Consulting

Here at NB Consulting, we ensure all our SAP designs are built on a sound understanding of SAP’s strengths and weaknesses

We focus and are responsible not just for SAP configuration but your end to end business process, training and change management and ensuring the go-live is as smooth as possible.

We deliver on our 4 core fundamentals:

Self-Sufficiency
We enable all our designs such that you understand how to maintain the design yourself. We build into our implementation approach your understanding of how SAP works so you can continue to support your business as it grows.
We stick to the tried and true SAP implementation methodologies that deliver your project on time, on budget and on your ROI.

Our Resources
Every resource we have has worked in multiple industries so you will get a consultant from NB that understands the best process for your business.

Flexibility
Our extensive experience in dozens of SAP implementations allow us to mold your project to fit your company culture and future growth plans across multiple industries.

Consultant Consistency
We do not have a revolving door policy to move consultants to other projects for our benefit. NB will work with you to determine the best roll-off schedule that supports a successful project and post go-live support.

SAP Consulting Principles | NB Consulting

Project Management

NB Consulting’s Management Team has a strong background in managing complex full lifecycle SAP Implementations. We have more than 100 Go-Lives ranging from Small to Medium Size Enterprise’s to the Largest Global companies in the world. We will always tell you our opinion regardless of whether that opinion results in financial loss to us.

We identify interim and long term solutions. And usually the interim solution is just as important as the long term solution. Just because there is a solution that is the most efficient does not mean the business is ready for it. Sometimes smooth and slick damages the business where boring but cheerful is best, until the business is ready.

Our project plans are simple and easy to use. Key dates and deliverables are easily understood by anyone on the project team regardless of background.

We have a hands on approach to project delivery which includes using SAP from Day 1 of the project. A business requirement can be given and seen in action in the SAP system real time. There is no need to wait till End to End Testing to see the solution and by that time it might be too late. The earliest use possible of SAP on a project delivers the following:

  • Project team understanding of SAP and its integration points
  • Scope definition
  • Enables self-sufficiency by teaching your project team members how to configure the system to support business requirements
  • Project team members can speak intelligently about why design decisions were made

Project Deliverables templates are always important to quality and staying on schedule. With NB’s extensive project experience, we have multiple templates for every deliverable for the project team to leverage.

Management commitment is essential to client satisfaction and building the partnership. NB’s management team will be involved at every step of your project maintaining quality and alignment with your goals.

SAP Project Management

Data Conversion

  • Legacy SAP to S/4 HANA projects
  • Exclusive use of our SAP Data Transformation, NBTransform, software that works with any legacy system
  • Data conversion methodology
  • Master Data Governance
SAP Data Conversion | NB Consulting

SAP S/4 HANA

SAP S/4 HANA is SAP’s latest version of its software. It utilizes in memory computing which translates to us mere mortals as: fast.

Do you have a previous version of SAP? Do not be fooled; this is a re-implementation of SAP. Your previous version cannot be upgraded.  You may read that it can; it cannot.

However, re-implementation does not need to be as painful as it sounds.  All NB partners have completed S/4 implementations.  We have learned which business processes are best served in new ways and which ones can be migrated unchanged.

Additionally, we have our own S/4 HANA SAP system.  We use it to develop our solutions, learn new functionality and think about ways to best serve customers interested in moving to this release.  Our SAP embedded NBTransform tool enables you to easily transform your data as well.

Your biggest challenge on any implementation, SAP or otherwise, is your master data.  Accurate reporting is based on accurate transactional data.  Accurate transactional data is based on clean and accurate master data.

Re-implementation is the perfect opportunity to cleanse your data before migrating it to S/4.

If you are an SME, there is little reason to move to the new version.  Unfortunately, previous versions will lose SAP support in a few years.  Contact us on how we can help you re-implement with minimal disruption to your business accomplished with minimal change.  This can be accomplished and lay a foundation for taking advantage of new functionality S/4 HANA offers.

S4-Hana | NB Consulting

SAP Design Review

Sometimes you need a second opinion.  Is your design sound? Will it meet your business objectives? Will you be able to ship when you go live? Is your cut over plan complete? Has regression testing and negative testing been planned? We provide an objective design review.

Our process is simple: we ask your project team to conduct End to End business process demonstrations in each functional area. We include data conversion and technical objects with the understanding that some may need to be described and not shown.

Then we analyze the design using the functional and technical business requirements that drove the design. We provide findings in areas that are done well, areas that could use improvement now or in the future and business critical changes that need to be made.

SAP Design Audit | NB Consulting

Continuous Improvement

We believe the best way to identify areas of improvement is to sit with the day to day business users (down in the weeds) and observe them. Immediate improvements can be explained and documented for the business just with better ways to navigate SAP.

NB Consulting will work with you to scope out important processes that need to be enhanced in order for you to improve your return and efficiencies on SAP. We will meet with business users across all functional areas and determine any critical or quick hit processes that can be improved.

SAP Continuous Improvement | NB Consulting

Validated Systems

NB Consulting stays up to speed on the very latest technology to assure that regulated companies stay in compliance within their industries.

We are experts in the processes, methodologies and deliverables for SAP Software compliance for cGMP, the Current Good Manufacturing Practice regulations enforced by the FDA. The cGMPs guide systems that assure proper design, monitoring, and control of manufacturing processes and facilities.

We’re also well-versed on SAP Validated implementations for Manufacturing, CPG, Pharmaceutical and Life Sciences industries. The validation process checks that the SAP solution is set up correctly and is configured for the processes that a company defines, along with the required regulation. The partners at NB Consulting can provide end-to-end expertise in all aspects of cGMP validation, from the cGMP Assessment to submission to the FDA.

NB provides an advantage over most other firms in our use of real-world templates that leverage the development of the extensive documentation required for cGMP compliance. Some of these templates include:

  • cGMP Assessment Plan — The reason behind which business processes are relevant for cGMP and which are not.
  • Validation Master Plan — Verifies that the software system demonstrates acceptable system functionality and controls including IQ, OQ, PQ, Data Conversion, IT Policies and system testing.
  • Infrastructure Qualification Plan (IQ) — Ensures that the IT infrastructure—Servers, Networks, Desktops, Software—are maintained with controlled and repeatable processes.
  • Operational Qualification Plan (OQ) — Qualifies that the software has been tested for all cGMP relevant functionality meets the requirements of the business.
  • Performance Qualification Plan (PQ) — Ensures that the system performance is acceptable and how it will be controlled and managed.
  • Validation Trace Matrix — Provides proof that the required functionality for every cGMP relevant business process has been tested; it ties each requirement to the successfully completed and documented integration test including the resolution of any deviations.
  • End-to-End Test Case — The Unit and Integration tests that will be executed for each cGMP relevant business process across all functional areas.
  • Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) — Step-by-step instructions for how to execute each business process the SAP system will perform.
  • 21 CFR Part 11 Electronic Signature — Completion of the FDA documentation ensuring electronic records compliance with the validation, audit trail, record retention, and record copying within the SAP or other computer systems in scope.
  • A Full Suite of IT Policy Documents — Change Management, Transport Management, System Access, and more

We can provide these services as part of an implementation or as a separate initiative where your company is required to become cGMP compliant. NB will supply the resources to work with your Quality Team. We’ll also give you the full set of required templates to ensure your full compliance.

Can’t find what you’re looking for?

Get in touch so that we can discuss your requirements further.




    What our clients say

    NB Consulting’s approach is to not just fix problems that you are having. They involve themselves in your processes, to better understand how to make changes to your SAP system – making it easier to manage, report and transact on a daily basis.

    Vice PresidentOmega Research and Development