Abstract
A project is a complex, no routine, one-time effort limited by time, budget, resources, and performance specifications designed to meet a customer’s needs (Gray & Larson, 2010). Consequently, although projects may seem similar, largely they are different, and each project represents a unique experience reflecting the variations in the projects’ scopes, objectives, specifications, time, budget, resources, constraints, and risks. In line with this, the author’s experience as a consultant in different ERP projects indicates that each project has its own unique issues, concerns, and problems, although some of them are common across different projects. This chapter attempts to examine the nature and causes of issues, problems, and concerns that were observed in one of the author’s Gulf ERP implementations and suggests the introduction of new and enhanced features in ERP system implementation methodologies as a means to cope with potentially damaging issues, problems, and concerns, and prevent them from evolving into malicious risks that could lead to project failures.
TopSetting The Stage
A close look at how operations were handled by OGC prior to the ERP project indicates clearly that business areas and functions were isolated of each other resembling disconnected islands whereby each OGC department (island) had its applications, programs, activities, and own way of doing things without much consideration of how they would those impact or related to other parts of the organization. While some departments were running legacy systems, others were either using simple standalone software and MS applications or running virtually fully manually.
OGC had more than 30 legacy systems running at the same time on different databases including, Oracle, MS Access, and SQL Server, and were also running on different platforms. These legacy systems were used by nearly 2000 employees from different business areas, such as Maintenance, Inspection, Inventory, Purchasing, Contracts, Finance, Human Resources, and Payroll.
It was evident that not all the legacy systems were talking to each other (integrated) and fell short of covering all the business areas requirements and needs.
Recognizing the inadequacy of the existing softwares and their lack of integration, OGC was on the lookout for the best solution to integrate or replace these various legacy systems, improve the business processes and automate all the manual work. Eventually the final decision was in favor of replacing all the legacy systems with a proven ERP solution. The selection process was concluded with a recommendation to implement and integrate Oracle E-Business Suite and IBM MAXIMO to constitute the total ERP solution.
The duration of the implementation project was two years and was partnered and resourced by three companies: OGC (The project owner), IVEN (The ERP implementing vendor for both Oracle and Maximo), and CONSCO (The consulting company that was hired by OGC for auditing purposes and to make sure that IVEN was implementing and delivering the project correctly and according to the signed contract with OGC).
The project team was made up of 67 people representing the three companies as follows:
OGC: The project owners' resources and participants in the ERP implementation project included (9) Steering committee members, (1) Project sponsor, (1) Project manager (PM), and (33) Team members representing the following business and technical areas: