a. What aspects of BI have been employed in this case example?

                They became the beta site for Business Information Warehouse, which allows consolidate internal and external business information and use it for data modelling – business case scenarios.     

b. What would you expect to be challenges facing the development of a BI approach for such a large organisation?

                The challenges will be the scale of the project, amount of people involved and realisation of the potential for BI.

c. Would Dow Corning be a suitable candidate for a shared services approach using an ASP?

                As they are a globally operating organisation, and are experiencing global integration problems, this would be good to help integrate their customers and suppliers to Dow Corning ERP as this would be a cheaper way for them to gain access to ERP package.  With increasing usage of Internet the netsourcing is a way of acquiring external services, it’s important to realise that the ERPs runs the business.

Presentation:

Structure:

-          Initial situation

-          Cisco process:

• Analyse
• Selection – information search, experience
• Involvement – internal, external
• Decision
• Oracle flexibility and strategic partnership

-          Implementation – CRP Conference Room Pilots

-          Lessons learned

Term  review:

1. What was the most difficult assessment?

Probably the annotated bibliography, as it was first ass after years and I had to learn what is expected of me …

1. What was difficult about it?

New approach for me, like learning to swim again … )

1. Advice for other students …

Here I’ll repeat obvious … )

Start early, my experience is that even thou i have an idea how to do, in a moment I start writing I change many things, approach, etc … and every change adds to time needed

1. How will I be able to use this knowledge?

Not sure yet, but everything we learn makes us more versatile …

The project can be delayed, or even aborted if the economic situation changes, as the economy took dive end of 2008, situation for many companies changed and other priorities emerged. The company may have abandoned part of their business, let’s say sold their manufacturing business and upgrade or interface with their ERP was not relevant anymore. Example from Sumner page 121, Fox Mayer Drug lost big customer during implementation of their SAP ERP, they signed up new one, contract with whom required changes to the software pushing project cost over $100 million, this was part of blame for project failure.

Presentation, what was helpful:

7 tips for presentation

http://sbinfocanada.about.com/od/salesselling/a/presentationkr.htm

Sumner Q.1 page 97

a. Given the interrelationship between MRP and ERP, does it make sense for a non-manufacturing company to adopt ERP system?

Yes it does, ERP systems are modular and not developed just for manufacturing companies, inventory systems are important part of ERP, for most companies which sell some products.

The ERP systems impose so called “Best practices”, which should be the best way of doing business. Organization has to change its processes to align with the ERP package, the need to reengineer the business processes is viewed as one of the ERPs major benefits (Finney 2007). Adopting ERP system can bring many benefits; these are seen as main benefits – inventory and personnel reduction, productivity improvement, order management improvement and financial close cycle reduction (Sumner).

b.  Have manufacturing systems been basis for all ERP systems?

No, many ERP systems were developed with focus on managing company accounting, order management, etc …

Sumner Q.3 page 98

The Production Planning and Material Management modules within ERP have interfaces to other modules, including Human Resources, Sales and Distribution, and Financial Accounting. Describe these interfaces:

Human resources – manages employees, organise trainings, payroll, predicts future needs

Sales and Distribution – need to send expected sales levels to prod planning, cooperate with production so there is goods to sell, needs to know inventory levels

Financial Accounting – receives bills for material, goods, receives invoices for goods sold

References:

Finney, S, Corbett, M, 2007, ERP implementation: a compilation and analysis of critical success factors, Business Process Management Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, pp. 329-347, (online Emerald)

Sumner, M, T2005, Enterprise Resource Planning, 1^st edn, Prentice Hall

Resistance to change, as employees are reluctant to learn new techniques must be addressed through structured training as it is natural, that we oppose something unknown. Staffs needs to understand the benefits of change, otherwise they are more likely to resist. It’s important to concentrate on motivation, progress incentives, recognition of success, and team building efforts (Saatcioglu 2009). Four elements which help reduce the resistance are – strong top management support; using the best people for implementation; heavy involvement of people with knowledge of ERP; effective communication and trust. The top management must be able to convey the vision of change to employees (Motwani, Subramanian & Gopalakrisna 2005).

The resistance must be dissolved as it may prolong the whole process of implementation, to make it more expensive or even turn it in to a failure. It long term it can turn in to non-satisfaction with ERP system and the actual goal of increased efficiency won’t be reached.

Reference:

Motwani, J, Subramanian, R & Gopalakrisna, P, 2005, Critical factors for successful ERP implementation: Exploratory findings from four case studies, Computers in Industry, vol. 56, issue 6, pp. 529-544 (online ScienceDirect)

Saatcioglu, O 2009, What determines user satisfaction in ERP projects: benefits, barrier or risks?,Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 690-708, (online Emerald)

Cisco case study

Introduction: What was the situation at  Cisco before upgrading to Oracle 5. There was old legacy system not able to support current processes, Cisco was looking for new system for over a year. Then the system crashed and Cisco was ofline for 2 days. It was decided that this can’t happen again and solution must be found. Decision between upgrading current system and ERP. ERP won. 

Executive summary: I am approaching the case from the implementation point of view, what needs to be done so the implementation is succesful and what Cisco did to achieve it. Model of software development used in Cisco, involvement of Oracle, customization, etc …

No matter what decision we need to make, we need to understand what is involved, we need to understand the problem. To analyse the situation and to select the best, most suitable system, we need to create team of people from all department which will be affected by the system and which will be able to analyse the business needs of the organization, to assess the system from all angles of business and IT perspective.

With new technology and not enough of in-house knowledge it is often critical to acquire external expertise to facilitate successful ERP implementation. These consultants are used to help with ERPs selection, business process planning and reengineering, ERPs implementation, end user training, and finally with ERPs maintenance and support (Al-Mudimigh, 2007).

While selecting new ERPs, the requirement analysis needs to be done; this involves analyse of all business processes in the organization and analyse of support of these processes by the ERPs. It is important to take technology factors in to consideration while selecting the ERPs vendor and system. Most vendors offer best practices for specific industries (Sumner 2005).

To make an uninformed decision is a wrong decision and will most likely face failure or significant loss of money, time, etc …

Reference:

Al-Mudimigh, S. A 2007, The role and impact of business management in enterprise system implementation, Business Process Management Journal, vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 866-874, (online Emerald)

Cisco case study

Conclusion: Selectino and implementation of ERP system was important step for Cisco to support their growth. Selecting Oracle was strategical because of the importance of this project to Oracle , as Cisco became the first customer using their new version supporting manufacturing.  

Recommendation: As progress never stops, it is inportant to keep looking for ways of gaining competitive advantage. Through BPR, technology … If there will be a new vesrion of ERP, it’s important to evaluate, what can be gain from upgrading to new version, what ROI, etc and if positives prevail, we should procede ….

Q.2 Provide examples of events that you think may trigger alterations in a work plan. What would the consequences of such events be?

Rising implementation costs that exceed budgets have caused many companies to trim project efforts (Hillman-Willis, Willis-Brown 2002), this usually means shorter training, abbreviated redesigning processes and in general less satisfaction with the project. If people are not happy with the new system, it’s less likely this system will benefit the organisation (Saatcioglu 2009).

Underestimating of projects requirements, implementation is taking more time then estimated due to lack of people experienced in earlier implementations. (Yongbeom, Zoonky & Sanjay 2005)

Lack of monitoring and feedback - there must be formal techniques to measure progress. The employees progress, satisfaction must be monitored and employees readiness managed through organised training. The top management must be able to convey the vision of change to employees (Motwani, Subramanian & Gopalakrisna 2005).

Consequences to all these events can be from slowing the implementation process, less satisfaction with the project to implementation failure.

References:

Hillman-Willis, T, Willis-Brown, A, 2002, Extending the value of ERP, Industrial Management & Data Systems, vol. 102, no. 1, pp. 35-38, (online Emerald)   

Motwani, J, Subramanian, R & Gopalakrisna, P, 2005, Critical factors for successful ERP implementation: Exploratory findings from four case studies, Computers in Industry, vol. 56, issue 6, pp. 529-544 (online ScienceDirect)

Saatcioglu, O, 2009, What determines user satisfaction in ERP projects: benefits, barrier or risks?,Journal of Enterprise Information Management, vol. 22, no. 6, pp. 690-708, (online Emerald)

Yongbeom, K, Zoonky, L & Sanjay, G, 2005, Impediments to successful ERP implementation process, Business Process Management Journal, vol. 11, no. 2, pp. 158-170, (online Emerald)

Ass 3

Introduction

Main body of the report:

-          Reasons for adopting ERPs

-          Selection and decision processes

-          Risks and barriers

-          Success rate of implementation

• User satisfaction
• Top management commitment
• Process reengineering
• Adopting Best practices

-          Recommendation

-          Conclusion

 With new ERPs, Wingate Electric would be able to address all major challenges it has to deal with now. All data would be in centralised database, company would have access to consistent, reliable data, and no data redundancy (reduced cost for data entry), more reliable financial reports. Easier maintenance done by one software provider, regular updates, etc (there’s no documentation with their current legacy systems)

One of their criteria for selection was to match their current business processes, it would be good to analyse, if reengineering of their current business processes would not offer them any advantage. It was good, that business people were involved with this process, cause this needs to be look at from business point of view, but they should definitely get some people from IT involved as well, as it seem, that main view is business and their current IT infrastructure is not able to support any of the ERPs they can select. And try to apply any ERPs without proper IT infrastructure would most likely end up as failure of the whole ERP implementation.

Wingate Electric can choose other option, they can choose standard core of ERPs and mix it with best of breed programs (specialised programs) if they need any of its special functions, it’s important to make sure the interface is solid.

Another option can be to have in house system developed, but as they are a smaller company i would advise against it, as this may prove costly, time consuming and it seems that most of their practices are standard and there’s plenty of solutions on the marked(off shelf) .

SAPG1, 2009, SAP Customer Success Story: AXE HOUGHTON, accessed on 20/11/2009

Available:  www.sap.com/industries/retail/customers/all/index.epx

There are many standard business operations every organisation has to deal with, accounting, inventory system, human resources, etc … The ERP systems are usually modular so there is always possibility to purchase only modules that will benefit our organisation. If there are any nonstandard operations as may be tracking of packages on route, credit card payment system, or any other, which ERPs can’t do, we should evaluate if there is a way how to integrate this additional function (software from different vendor or BOB software) into our ERP system. We should evaluate what is the cost/benefit of doing so and if this would benefit the business we should proceed with implementation.

If organisation uses business processes that do not match any commercial ERPs but the ERPs has all necessary functions to manage the business needs, and implementation of this system would benefit the organisation, i would recommend reengineering of organisational processes as there may be more effective way of doing them.

A good example can be AXE Houghton, which implemented SAP (Business One) system which helped them address all challenges the company was facing which the previous system was not able to handle.

-          Track orders and repairs in real time

-          Manage growth

-          High service level

Company is currently integrating credit card processing software with SAP Business One, which will enable call centre representative to pre authorise, charge, and track credit card payments and automatically take money from customer accounts at agreed intervals (this is now manually typed in to the system). Next step is to integrate shipping software from another software vendor; tracking numbers and related delivery information are manually typed into the shipping software. This will minimise overheads due to reducing the data entry cost.

The ERPs is standard core software for most organisations, there’s is often need for specialised “piece” or software as not all organisations have same needs. If there is an easy way how to make the specialised application work with ERPs (interface) the company can benefit from marriage of those two.

There is always possibility of developing their own system, but this usually proves to be very costly and takes more time then implementing ERPs or combining ERPs with BOB system. Not talking about cost of future support for this in house developed system as there will be no standard software updates for the system.

Q.4

The situation is wrong, wrong department was asked to do the evaluation of the new ES as the ERPs is supposed to serve the business, same as IT is there to provide assistance and support the selected ES. The IT people will look at the proposed ES adoption from the wrong angle (IT point of view).

SAP, 6/09, ‘SAP Customer Success Story, AXE HOUGHTON’, viewed 15 November

www.sap.com/industries/retail/customers/all/index.epx AXE HOUGHTON

President of AXE HOUGHTON Group Inc. Ben Cohen explains in this article why the company needed new ERPs.  The current software has reached its limits and AXE got in to position that they had to start removing customers from the database to stay in its capacity limitation. With rapid growth on hands AXE needed more sophisticated software platform to support formal process flows and real-time visibility across all segments of its business.

Ben Cohen has seen presentation of SAP Business One and after doing the feasibility study decided that it answers all key challenges for AXE:

-          Managing growth

-          Tracking orders and repairs in real time

-          Meeting customer expectations for higher service level

-          ISO 9000 certification

They’ve hired Implementation SAP partner Zantek Information Technology Inc., implementation of the software was done within 2 months with minimal interruption to the business.

With new system AXE is able to manage all their current activities and is well prepared for future growth. I can see why AXE got new system and how it helps to manage their business processes. 

Functionality

The best of breed systems are designed to excel in one or few applications, as they offer richer functionality, the off shelf systems are starting catching up.

Support

It’s easier when one vendor is involved compare to multiple vendors.

Human resources

There may be shortage of IT skills as in BOD environment the IT staff must maintain and support multiple systems.

Implementation

The implementation of BOD systems can usually be spread over longer period of time, as different departments may be implementing different packages and can be implemented when the department is available. Compare to ERP system there will be considerable more learning involved. This will incur extra cost and time.

Organisations are adopting an integrated system strategy, where standard ERP systems are combined   with “Best of breed” systems as these systems can provide extra competitive advantage.  In some organisation there is no other option then to use special application which ERPs can’t handle as is Computer Aided Design (CAD) system, Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP), Sales forecasting, Customer contact management.

Summary

References:

Sumner, Mary. Enterprise resource planning. Pearson Prentice Hall 2005

Robinson, Phil. Best of Breed v Fully integrated. www.bpic.co.uk