Case Study 1

The Cashe Company was running on legacy systems, and with the impending Y2K problems, it chose to replace those systems and shift to client/server environment. In 1996, the Cashe Company began modernizing hardware and software systems in the company. The original plan was to switch over to the new ERP system by April 1999. As per plan the company had started revamping its hardware and software infrastructure in 1997. In 1999, the company faltered during the final leg of the ERP implementation. The company had selected the services of three vendors SAP AG (SAP), Siebel Systems (Siebel) and Manugistics for the project, and some of the modules were implemented as per the schedule by the company in January 1999. The company usually receives huge orders for the coming Halloween and Christmas seasons during the months of May and June. The implementation which was planned to be ended by April 1999 was delayed and was extend to July 1999. In order to over come this and to get done with the implementation process the company management switched to Big Bang implementation. To meet the time line the company planned for simultaneous implementation of several modules. Due to lack of time, some of the modules implemented were not tested properly. Several problems related to order management and fulfillment resulted due to this. Even though the Cashe Company had the finished product stocked in its warehouses, it was not able to fulfill orders from many of its retailers and distributors. The failure in the implementation of ERP immediately resulted in an adverse affect. The company recorded annual revenues for 1999 reduced; there was a drop of 12% when compared to that in 1998. In the third quarter of 2000, the company announced that its revenues increased by 12% as compared to the revenues in the third quarter of 1999. During the same period, profits increased by 23%. Questions: 1. Study the circumstances that led to ERP implementation failure at the Cashe Company. 2. Evaluate the role played by top management in ERP implementation. 3. Examine the factors that lead to success or failure of ERP projects

Case Study 2
Built in 1982, starting with steel castings as main products, Patel Alloy Steel Pvt. Ltd.(PASL) has developed different grades of SGI castings as per the market need and established itself as a leading manufacturer of SGI casting parts on local and global market through consistent high quality of work. The company was an early pioneer in development of heavy weight castings for Plastic Injection Molding Machine and Wind Turbine Generator Industry. From its integrated works-sites spread over 42 acres of land and a built-up area of over seven acres PASL has serviced both local needs and worldwide markets. PASL can supply castings in proof or final machined condition. They deliver casting in painted condition to Paint-shop.

In this highly competitive industrial coatings market, success depends on IT systems that drive internal efficiencies. However, at Patel Alloys a MS DOS based accounting system was being used

along with some applications which were in isolation. Over time, the company found that the existing legacy system was inadequate for growing information needs of the organization and it was lacking proper management controls. The PASL management wanted a fully integrated solution that would enable employees throughout the organization to communicate more effectively and enjoy access to timely, accurate, and comprehensive information. Also, they wanted a solution that was based on widely used technologies and thereby familiar to the people who would be working with it. After considering a number of options, PASL chose Microsoft Dynamics NAV as the solution that would best meet its needs. They chose to work together with Microsoft Certified Partner, Intech Systems Pvt. Ltd. Intech Systems is a specialized management and software consulting firm, which provides world class consulting and system implementation for business problems in the areas of Information Technology, Operations Management, Financial Management and Data Processing. A team of functional and technical experts from Intech Systems Pvt. Ltd. analyzed the business requirements of PASL before recommending the new solution. Managing Director of PASL opted for a new IT solution based on Microsoft Dynamics NAV because it was the best fit for their operations. Using the new solution, PASL was able to manage and control an unlimited number of activities running within a project, streamline budgeting and resource management, and integrate the information with financial data. Microsoft Dynamics NAV was chosen for its performance in a number of key areas of functionality. This ERP solution offers the company a powerful and costeffective solution. It adapts easily to an organization, especially certain processes, such as accounts receivable. Also, the solution's ability to grow with the company's needs means it would not limit future development and growth. The directives were given by the managing director to implement Dynamics NAV ERP from 1st April 2005 without doing any parallel run. This was a unique case and with the help of both the teams from Patel Alloys and Intech Systems it was implemented in a record time of three months. However, in the first three months Accounts, Sales, Purchase, Inventory and Payroll modules were operational. Following this the production module was implemented in two months. Microsoft small business server was installed along with Dynamics NAV and Microsoft SQL Server version was added to improve the company's database services. 1. What were the conditions that the management had to address before they started searching for proper software? 2. What were the requirements that the management kept in mind before choosing software? 3. Explain the collaboration that you can find between the management of the company and the developers. 4. Explain the reasons behind the successful implementation of the software.

Case Study 3
Escorts Limited's Agri Machinery Group (EL-AMG), manufactures agricultural machinery, and has four manufacturing plants and an R&D center in Faridabad. It manufactures three lines of tractors, imports and sells various other farm equipment, and consequently accounts for around two-third of

Escort's revenues. Using an ERP thus plays a significant role in the business operations of this manufacturing company. EL-AMG had already deployed ERP systems from Avalon, but was plagued with a number of challenges. The company was unable to draw a future roadmap and upgrade its technology. The company could not leverage the benefits of the Internet, e-commerce and other Web initiatives since the Avalon ERP is not Web-enabled. And to make matters worse, the ERP vendor, Avalon had shut shop in India. EL-AMG also had to deal with the problems of software bugs, which could not be resolved due to lack of proper documentation. The company feels that the bugs appeared due to overcustomization of the product. The central systems department, which took charge of applications maintenance, spent most of its time tackling these bugs. The system was not very user-friendly. The users were not able to run queries on their own. The responsibility of running the large amounts of queries and reports was delegated to the central systems department. This created a huge backlog of work. This prompted EL-AMG to look for an alternative enterprise applications solution for its business. As a solution, the company deployed a range of tools from the Oracle 11i suite like Oracle Financials, Oracle Discrete Manufacturing, Oracle Purchasing, Oracle Order Management, Oracle Workflow and Alerts, and Financial Analyzer (OFA) keeping in mind the organizations functional and technical requirements. A lot of time was spent in planning and deciding upon the right software. And the entire proceedings were conducted in an elaborate and phased manner to ensure efficiency. The company laid down three ground rules for vendors willing to participate. They were: The vendor had to conduct a three-month Business Process Re-engineering (BPR) exercise at EIAMG. The ERP vendor would be the technology implementation partner and handle the sole responsibility of the project. The ERP systems had to integrate seamlessly with the company's legacy software systems. An important highlight in the selection process was the involvement of end users. A team of around 70 members was created during evaluation. Almost 80 percent of the members belonged to functional areas. The rest were from the IT department. This was a key learning from the earlier ERP implementation, which was largely IT-driven. Each member of the team gave ratings to the vendor. The evaluation was finally done on the following criteria: Functionality The ability to integrate third party software Type of feedback from existing user base (through visits to other company's ERP sites) Presence in India Localization of modules, Cost, Time taken to implement A significant benefit of the new Oracle-based systems was the resolution of the problems with present in the earlier Avalon ERP. Due to the bugs, the company could not use its database (Oracle) for generating any meaningful MIS. So, the MIS for the top management was generated through Excel sheets instead of being generated directly through the system. With Oracle 11i, the MIS is generated through the system and standard reports are created.

With the help of the new tools, the company was able to perform better workflow processes, easier generation of MIS reports, bug-free performance of systems, and timely closing of accounting cycles. Questions 1. What do you think were the drawbacks of Avalon ERP? 2. Explain the selection process adapted by EL-AMG to select the new ERP vendor/product

Case Study 4
Analyze some of the major problems faced by XYZ Company while making an order for components for fabrication of dumper body are listed below, High manufacturing lead time. Inventory levels not balanced leading to excess and short inventory. Several manual registers and recording methodology. Several non value adding processes affecting costs and creating waste. Manual compilation of reports and MIS affecting accuracy and completeness.

To over come these problems the XYZ Company planned to implement a ERP based MRP system in their organization, and the following are the out come of the implementation of the ERP system in the organization. Automated MRP based on sale orders and delivery schedules given by customers Bill of material defined for all products. Better planning lead to better availability of material and also better purchase price for raw materials. Process and data integration lead to better inter-process control resulting in purchase optimization, inventory optimization. Wasteful exercises like manual registers writing, manual verification of certain details are eliminated by pushing the business rules into the software. Automatic generation of documents like Purchase Order, Invoice etc. leading to time saving and accuracy. Generation of MIS reports using real time data enabling the management take the right decision at the right time for running the business more profitably.

Questions 1. Analyze the problems faced by the company that forced it to get an ERP implementation. 2. Explain what how the company benefited form the new system. 3. Give your own perspective of how ERP helped in achieving the above mentioned results

Case Study 5
ERP Inventory management implementation Organization: Cruise Coffee and Tea Before, Cruise Coffee and Tea implemented ERP; they encompassed strict customization and older systems. This led to various problems such as, increasing lack of ability to keep up with the demands or orders placed on them and lack of visibility across the supply chain without any central

inventory management in place. This finally pushed the business to send out a Request for Proposal (RFP) to ERP system vendors. One objective of choosing ERP system mainly was to avoid customization or to keep the level of customization as minimum as possible. This is the key to any ERP implementation because more customization means a longer timeline, more testing, more costs and more probability that the project will fail. But ERP systems managed inventory in a top down approach and in one transactional workflow. Placing orders and handling every move of inventory in the warehouse was just automated and consistent. Originally, financials were made first, then order fulfillment and then manufacturing these separate releases resulted in a lot of extra customization. Then, when ERP was implemented, one system handled order tracking; financial systems were also made centralized as well. Earlier, financial information had to be gathered from various departments and systems and processed manually. But from the time Cruise Coffee and tea threw light on ERP system implementation, they now handle orders from its 195 retail stores, 8,300 grocery stores and other partners helping with the business expansion. Questions: 1. What role did ERP management play in the organization? 2. What were the reasons for the organization to avoid excessive customization?

Case Study 6 The new Chief Information Officer's responsibility was to replace the out dated computer systems with new packaged systems. It had to provide a competitive advantage through technology for the company. This meant using sophisticated systems to bring more resources to market (that is, filling jobs faster with their temporary employees), while at the same time slashing prices by reducing operating margins. The objective was to implement improved business processes by configuring and installing packaged ERP systems according to the results of an enterprise-wide reengineering effort.

The sales and service department will be able to fill jobs faster with temporary employees by using sales support applications. This was supposed to be configured in to the new system based on best practices identified and propagated throughout the organisation's distribution network. New business acquisition and retention of existing customers is going to be enhanced through customer management software and customer information reporting. With the use of the packaged applications the field offices will be able to reduce operating margins. This is meant to support field office functions, such as billing, payroll, time accounting, and collections. The definition of flow of activities, core business processes, and decision support needs will ensure the proper configuration of the packaged software to take advantage of reengineered processes with the latest technologies. The pre-integrated nature of the ERP-packaged software that is going to be implemented will provide a new baseline for all the company's systems. Plans were made to include those that will not be involved in the initial installation. These included systems that were isolated without integration requirements, systems that were not included in the available ERP functions and some special in-house applications and customised applications. Systems will be modified into the new order on a scheduled basis, and new development will target the standards established by the new ERP implementation. Integration will increase as all application of the company move into the new ERP environment. Therefore, the company will begin to develop superior knowledge management at the corporate level to be used for decision-making. But the CIO's main problem was the seemingly overwhelming gap between what he knew (the fragmented puzzle of the company's current systems) and what he needed to know (business requirements for the new systems). The CIO had minor information about how the existing systems were actually being used to conduct business in the company. His field managers, technical managers, and the headquarters staff that supported them all wanted the package installation to succeed. All the managers held a piece of the information needed to make it a success but none could see the whole picture. Without the crucial analysis of the use of current systems as a basis for defining future business requirements, the implementation project risked missing the mark. Questions: 1. Do you think the companys management was clear about the implementation process that it wanted to carry out? Is their any requirement of the companys top manager to take the responsibility of the implementation process? 2. What were the results the company was expecting from the new implementation?

3. How do you think the CIO has to overcome the problem that he is facing in this situation? Case Study 7:
In 2002 a major chemical company of India had completed a year of supply chain reengineering and decided upon a number of best practices that must be implemented. During the process of reengineering, the company decided to create a shared service function at their headquarters, which rationalised the purchasing and accounts functions of seven separate businesses already located at the site. The company estimated to produce a cost saving of 10%, or Rs 20 million, of their purchasing budget each year with the creation of the shared services function. The problem that they faced was overwhelming. With the same company, seven companies had overlapping vendors, items, numerous contracts with different pricing structures, and a variety of payment terms. The company organised a team to develop and implement a plan to develop the shared services function. At the same site, all the seven business functions were located, but were distinctly separate. Their own technology strategies were implemented for each business functions starting form; systems, hardware, and vendors. If the shared services function was to use the new ERP system of the company, there had to be a data cleansing and conversion process devised for each of the seven business functions. The software developing team reviewed the data from the businesses, it was decided that a separate teams would be required to complete the following: Rationalise vendors across businesses. Update or delete existing data. Negotiate new contracts and pricing with existing vendors. The team found that, there was a major overlap of items that were purchased across businesses and that the company was not using the purchasing power, it had to gain the best prices from vendors. As further enquiries were made into common items that were purchased across the company, it was found that greater savings could be achieved by limiting the number of vendors for specific groups of items, such as lab supplies and computer equipment. The seven businesses contracted nine lab supply companies, offering a larger volume of items to be purchased by only one or two lab supply vendors, the savings could be as much as 60%. Once this level of saving reached the ears of top management, more focus was put on rationalising vendors. In a number of cases, single sourcing was found to be appropriate when, one vendor offered even more significant levels of saving. The shared services function, operated on their ERP system fifteen months after the start of the task force. The combined seven businesses had minimised their total number of vendors from 34,000 to around 900. The number of items they purchased was reduced to 15,000 from 110,000. A team was allotted to monitor and approve new items and new vendors as they were required. Although the company estimated they would save 10% in the first and subsequent years, the estimate was raised to 23% for the first year and 15% for subsequent years based on the results of the task force. The company came to conclusions that after making such large savings, they would continue implementing best practices in the purchasing function. They had a plan for adopting procurement cards and introducing evaluated receipt settlement, where they would pay vendors based on goods received, to gain vendor discounts for prompt payment. Questions:

1. Explain how the company prepared it self for the implementation of the new system. 2. How was the software development team assisted by the company management? 3. Explain why the implementation process was a success.

Case Study 8

Case Study 9

Case Study 10: