The Emergency Purchase Order Habit
AgroMach operates three plants and 600 requisitioners. In six weeks a new group procurement approval process goes live in the ERP workflow: purchases above €5,000 need category-manager approval, and payment requires a three-way match. The change team has run 14 town halls and reached 85% training completion. Pilot data from Plant 2 shows 22% of transactions still bypass the workflow through emergency purchase orders, up from 9% before the change. The emergency PO policy has no definition of emergency. Two plant managers say publicly that the approvals slow maintenance and put production at risk. Middle managers who previously approved purchases up to €50,000 now see their authority reduced. The CFO has an external audit finding on split purchase orders. The COO, who sponsors the project, has attended one steering meeting in four months. Union representatives have asked for consultation before go-live.
1. Assess readiness and resistance. What does the bypass rate tell you, and which stakeholder groups need which interventions?
Read the worked answer
The bypass rate is the key signal. At 22%, up from 9%, the process is being actively routed around, not merely misunderstood. Training completion of 85% measures knowledge, not ability or desire. This is a change-management problem with a compliance consequence, not a communication deficit.
Diagnose by group and by ADKAR barrier:
- Plant managers: public resistance based on a legitimate operational fear about maintenance delay. The barrier is desire, and partly ability if the new process has no fast path. Intervention: co-design a genuine emergency route with clear criteria, a response-time commitment, and audit visibility. Do not argue; remove the excuse.
- Middle managers: loss of approval authority up to €50,000. Barrier is desire and identity. Intervention: give them a new role in category management, exception review, and supplier performance; make the loss of transaction approval a gain in influence. Involve them in defining thresholds.
- Requisitioners: 22% bypass suggests the path of least resistance is still the emergency PO. Barrier is ability and reinforcement. Intervention: simplify the workflow, embed guidance, monitor at transaction level, and publish exception rates by team.
- COO sponsor: one meeting in four months signals weak sponsorship. Barrier is awareness and commitment at the top. Intervention: a sponsor contract with specific behaviors, a monthly review, and a visible message that bypassing is not acceptable.
- Union: consultation request is legitimate. Address workload and role-change concerns before go-live to avoid formal dispute.
Do not treat all groups with the same town hall. Segment, diagnose the barrier, and match the intervention.
2. The COO wants to postpone go-live by three months. Argue for or against, with conditions.
Read the worked answer
A blanket three-month delay treats the symptom. The bypass behavior existed before go-live, and the audit finding on split purchase orders will not disappear while the project waits. Delay also lets the emergency-PO norm harden. However, going live with a 22% bypass and no emergency definition would institutionalize non-compliance.
Recommendation: proceed on a phased basis, with conditions.
Conditions:
- Publish an emergency-PO definition and a fast-track SLA within two weeks; measure it from day one.
- Secure a written sponsor commitment from the COO: weekly escalation review, a message to all plant managers, and attendance at go-live.
- Run a middle-manager workshop to redesign their role and agree thresholds; do not leave them with only a loss.
- Complete union consultation before Plant 1 go-live.
- Deploy transaction-level monitoring for bypass, duplicate invoices, and split POs; report weekly.
- Phase by plant: Plant 2 first, then Plant 1, then Plant 3, with a two-week gap and a go/no-go based on bypass rate, cycle time, and emergency-route usage.
Decision rule: if the emergency route is defined and the bypass rate is falling in the pilot, proceed. If not, delay only the affected plant, not the program. A delay without these conditions simply moves the same problem three months later.
3. Design reinforcement mechanisms so the new process sticks after go-live.
Read the worked answer
Reinforcement is the ADKAR stage most often skipped. Design it before go-live, not after.
- Visible leadership: the COO signs a one-page commitment; plant managers repeat it in their own operating reviews. Sponsorship is a behavior, not a title.
- Consequence management: bypass is reviewed weekly; repeated bypass triggers coaching, then escalation. Recognize teams with high first-time-right rates, not just low cycle time.
- Process design: make the compliant path faster than the workaround. A defined emergency route with a four-hour response removes the main rational excuse.
- Data and transparency: a dashboard by plant and cost center showing emergency-PO rate, split-PO flags, approval cycle time, and three-way-match exceptions. Visible data changes behavior more than reminders.
- Capability: refresher sessions for requisitioners, a help desk for the first eight weeks, and a quick-reference guide embedded in the ERP.
- Governance: a post-go-live review at 30, 60, and 90 days with a go/no-go for the next phase. Update the emergency policy if data shows the threshold is wrong.
- Union and workforce: report back on consultation outcomes and monitor workload impact.
The test is not training completion. It is whether a maintenance technician can buy a critical part quickly through the compliant path and whether a plant manager would defend that path in a production meeting.