A plant and a close that finally describe the same month.

Brant ran three plants on a release of ERP nobody wanted to upgrade and a planning spreadsheet everybody trusted more than the system. Finance closed in eleven days. The plants planned in a language the ledger did not speak. A previous program had stalled after design, and the operators were done with workshops.

Orient took six weeks and ended with a refusal: we would not automate the expediting culture. The roadmap sequenced inventory truth, then planning, then a thinner close. Custom shop-floor code was declined in writing.

Implementation moved in slices. Site one reconciled inventory twice before site two was configured. Planners rehearsed a full week of orders against production-like data, including the shortages they usually hid.

Cutover was a Tuesday. The old planning file was retired the same week, with a named owner for the two reports that replaced it. Hypercare sat with the planners, not in a distant chat channel.

Inventory fell 22 percent across the three sites while the promised service level held. The close moved from eleven days to five. The steering group still meets monthly, against the same four numbers agreed in Orient. The custom log has fourteen exceptions, each with an owner, down from an unbound list.