Rob's Blog

30/6: Busy Busy

Since returning from the ILUG at Dublin just over a month ago I have been really busy with one of my clients.  Their US parent decided last Christmas to implement Oracle's eBusiness suite ERP across the group and to start in the UK.  The scope of the projects includes the Financials modules (General Ledger, Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable, Fixed Assets and Cash Management), Human Resources, Time & Labour, Procurement, Expenses and - last but not least - the Projects modules.

In the UK, this implementation will replace software written using IBM's UniVerse DBMS and Lotus Notes/Domino mostly written by me over the last twenty years plus a bought in Finance system called SunAccounts from Systems Union.  So I have mixed feelings about this.  They have a fully bespoke ERP written specifically for them and their US parent has decided to rip and replace it.  This is personal.

The methodology used to specify the system by the Oracle Contractors is totally alien to me and not something I'm likely to use in the future.  However, I am learning quite a bit about how the modules all interface together and will be able to use that knowledge in the future.  I am travelling 60 miles to work and 60 miles back most days which I find tiring and especially difficult last week when the motorway was closed because of the flooding.

By 1st April 2008 (yes April Fool's Day) the company intends to go live with the new systems.  However successful the implementation project goes between now and then, I believe that the new software will ultimately fail to improve the company's business.  The investment cost of the project coupled with the ongoing additional costs in maintaining the infrastructure for it will never be returned by efficiency savings or increased revenue.  In addition, however, there are big risks involved in the data migration required to drive the Projects.

Data must be migrated out of the existing UniVerse databases into the Oracle tables.  The Oracle Projects suite works completely differently to the existing systems so the data migration is complex.  To migrate data to the Projects suite, a completely bespoke interface will need to be written using the custom APIs which are basically a large number of stored procedures.  There are likely to be around 700 projects that will need their data migrating.

Once the UK has its systems in place, the ERP will be implemented in Ireland, Mexico, Brazil, USA, Canada, Australia and a few smaller installations elsewhere.  However, I expect that there'll be some additional work to be done in the UK before these projects get going.

This may be one of my last projects for this client.  I feel like a turkey voting for Christmas.