پیاده سازی پروژه سیستم های اطلاعات سازمانی :: مورد مطالعه از ERP در رولز رویس

Economic globalisation and internationalisation of operations are essential factors in integration of suppliers, partners and customers within and across national borders, the objective being to achieve integrated supply chains. In this effort, implementation of information technologies and systems such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) facilitate the desired level of integration. There are cases of successful and unsuccessful implementations. The principal reason for failure is often associated with poor management of the implementation process. This paper examines key dimensions of implementation of ERP system within a large manufacturing organisation and identifies core issues to confront in successful implementation of enterprise information system. A brief overview of the application of ERP system is also presented and in particular, ERP software package known as SAP R/3, which was the ERP software package selected by Rolls-Royce plc. The paper takes an in-depth look at the issues behind the process of ERP implementation via a case study methodology. It focuses on business and technical as well as cultural issues at the heart of the Rolls-Royce implementation. The case study also looks at the implementation time scales and assesses the benefits from the project both tangible and intangible.

The global nature of modern marketplace requires active players to internationalise their operations. In the past, companies were used to competing based on one or two competitive performance objectives such as price and quality. However, present markets demand both price and quality in addition to greater flexibility and responsiveness and thus today's organisations must compete based on all competitive objectives. In order to achieve such simultaneity in performance objectives, some organisations have decentralised their operations by global outsourcing of activities. This places enormous challenge on companies to achieve a co-ordinated and integrated supply chain. The emergence of various information technologies such as the Internet, electronic data interchange (EDI) and WWW facilitate the attainment of an integrated supply chain and in turn flexibility and responsiveness in meeting changing market requirements. Information systems such as manufacturing resource planning (MRPII) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) in particular have gained ground in providing support for achieving an integrated supply chain. Firms around the world have been implementing ERP systems since the 1990s to have a uniform information system in their respective organisations and to re-engineer their business processes (Rajagopal, 2002). ERP system as a packaged software has the advantages of reduced cost, rapid implementation, and high system quality (Lucas et al., 1988). Although application packages have these benefits over custom design software, packaged software have problems of uncertainty in acquisition and hidden costs in implementation. Successful ERP implementation must be managed as a program of wide-ranging organisational change initiatives rather than as a software installation effort. Such IT-driven initiatives require change of the organisation's socio-economic system, which is intertwined with technology, task, people, structure, and culture. Thus organisational resistance to change is identified as a critical success factor for ERP implementation (Hong and Kim, 2002). Organisational fit and adaptation are important to implementation of modern large-scale enterprise systems that are built with pre-determined business process methodology. As a result, customisation is a crucial, lengthy, and costly aspect in the successful implementation of ERP system, and has, accordingly, become a major speciality of many vendors and consulting companies. Gefen (2002) examines how such companies can increase their clients’ perception of engagement success through increased client trust, that is brought about through respective and dependable customisation. Considering the importance of ERP in SCM, an attempt has been made in this paper to analyze the implementation issues of ERP in a major UK company. The lessons learned from this company would be useful for other companies in their efforts to successfully implement modern ERP system.

Rolls-Royce has a large complex business process and the project has had to assess the effects throughout the whole business, which is equivalent to ten medium sized companies pulling together as one. This has caused administrative difficulties, particularly in the first phase of the project, whilst setting the strategy and overall direction. Rolls-Royce decided to make these radical changes to their business, in response to increased orders from the market place, and also from the fact that ERP has become a standard solution world-wide within the Aerospace and Defence industry. The introduction of SAP R/3 at the facility in the USA was a major factor in influencing the UK implementation. Rolls-Royce produce a range of quality world class turbine engines, and have recognised that they must change in order to compete effectively with their competitors. Accurate information systems and direct communication with suppliers are vital when offering customers a committed promise to deliver. Rolls-Royce has understood the business, cul- tural and technical difficulties of such a large project, and has developed a solid core implemen- tation team. The team has used the specialist skills of consultancy specialists. The partnership with EDS has produced a sound architectural frame- work for the project, thus allowing Rolls-Royce to concentrate its efforts on manufacturing turbine engines. A project of this size would never run smoothly and difficulties have occurred through- out the implementation and will no doubt occur in the future. The company have taken a different approach to IT systems but have not let the projectbecome just another IT system. The core imple- mentation teams have taken into account the needs of both the managerial and end-user. The following list contains just some of the problems encountered: * Matching the process to the software config- uration. * Training people to accept change, and getting them to do business in a totally new way. * Teaching employees to use modern IT equip- ment. * Equipment not delivered on time, or delays in technical equipment installation. * Data clean up has been particularly time consuming as many legacy systems have been involved. * Training the behaviour of SAP users such as MRP Controllers and Capacity Owners. Many activities have taken place, which have been vital to the overall success of the project, such as: * Bridging the legacy systems and cleaning up suspect data has given the company more trust in its management of information. * Training senior management, particularly the executive group, who are responsible for the overall direction of the company and are not technically orientated. * Managing effective relationships and leading teams in both technical and non-computer based environments. * Manufacture simulation exercises. * Transactional training. * Shop floor communication with line workers was an exercise that occurred during the implementation of suite 3. This required line workers to attend workshops to learn new PC skills in order to book work. SAP guarantee that newer versions of their software will upgrade SAP reports, whilst specially created reports will require re-writing of the software. The future of the project will eventually lead to the need for a Data Warehouse. A Data Warehouse is an integrated collection of data. Thedata is stored centrally and is extracted from operational, historical and external databases. The data is first screened then edited and finally standardised for future retrieval. The data is stored in a logical user-friendly format. It allows non-technical users to create database queries allowing the simple retrieval of management information for business intelligence and manage- rial decision making. The database continually absorbs new data and integrates it with the previous data. The full benefits of the project will not be fully experienced or achieved until the system becomes executive and has a period of stability, for at least a whole year. Once the system has become stable and users have had time to adjust to new working practices the benefits of lower IT cost will become visible. An immediate benefit that will be achieved by the system will be the ability to promise and then deliver to the customer on time. This was something that the older systems could never achieve, as they often used due dates that were in the past. SAP can only use current information. The ability to deliver on time will improve customer satisfaction and also improve customer confidence, which should lead to an increase of orders in the future. The system will also improve the relationship in the supply chain, as transac- tions will be made easier via the use of Electronic Communications. The sustainability of enterprise information systems (EIS) during the post-implementation period needs to be looked into. There is a lack of clear understanding about the strategic needs and requirements for sustaining the effectiveness of large-scale information systems after a period of relative stability following initial implementation. Sustainability management of EIS is therefore a very important research dimension that needs to be explored to maximise the benefits of an expensive information system investment such as ERP