Sap

Well, spent the entire morning in a training class preparing for our entire business to switch to SAP for all business systems. As a mere end user, I am not involved in the implementation of the thing, and thank the gods for that!

However, I am learning that in order to do something that would have taken me a few minutes at most, will now be a minimum 1/2-hour process.

The course I was in today was for procurement of items (placing purchase orders basically) and since my job "could" be boiled down to "I buy things" this is quite an important thing for me to be able to do. The name of the course should have been:

"How to place a purchase order in 739 easy to follow steps."

Just driving down through all the menu options was mind boggling, and of course in addition to new software to deal with (which happens quite often so am am usually quite good at adapting) they are changing all the deparment and accounting codes that I have spent the last 20 years learning. Now I have to learn all these new acronyms for HIBE's, and NLAG's and VERP's and a thousand others. Christ it's like I have to learn to speak Klingon!

Our site is the "Pilot" for implementing through our entire corporation, and when the head honcho of this project spoke to our group today, he admitted that they have lists of "thousands of problems" cropping up each day! It looks like we will be piloted right into the ground!

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but this is going to be ugly when we "go live" and that date is all of 3 weeks from now.......

[C.J.]

Sometimes change isn't such a good thing. When I first began my career we used typewriters and carbon paper, oh how easy life was!. Then we went to the same report templates put into a word program. Our introduction into the computer world was rough, but the word program did make life a lot easier. Just when things were running smoothly, the city decided to implement a new and entirely different program called C.P.L.I.M.S.. This was completely different from any format we used in the past and looked nothing like anything we were used to. For the first six to eight months the wheels of justice ground ever slower while SOME of the bugs were worked out. It's still very difficult to work with, though and seems to be riddled with problems and bugs. Often, these "improvements" seem to enforce the old saying "if it isn't broke, why the hell do they fix it?

I thought the sap season was over a couple of months ago?

[Earl]

form the MAPLE LEAFS??????????

[Earl]

form the MAPLE LEAFS?????????? ROFLMAO

[JJ Irani]

What the hell is SAP? And, yes, I don't have time to fek around with Google!!

Originally Posted by JJ Irani

What the hell is SAP? And, yes, I don't have time to fek around with Google!!

Nevertheless... I love posting this:

[Goodwatch]

Al, that sounds very familiar. My company changed from tailor made mainframe software to JD Edwards One World XE a couple of years ago. Except for the branch I work. We have invested heavily in IBM AS/400’s (now iSeries i520) and bespoke software. We did an extensive study on the impact, both financially and on the user experience and presented the outcome to the Board. We kept our own systems but take part in the finance module. The whole project was dubbed “PEPI, Package Enabled Process Improvement” and cost a whopping 65 million Euro. Why the decision was made still baffles me but the success is low, the aggravation high and the overall costs have risen. The first year was a disaster, the other branches actually had to hire more staff to battle the increased workload. Indeed, what took 1 minute on the familiar ‘green screens’ took 15 minutes or more on the new system and the number of steps to complete an order tripled. It took an other year and more money to stabilize the system that was plagued by a lot of unplanned down time. Our humble AS/400’s have had an average of 1 hour unplanned and 16 hours planned (archiving and program maintenance) per year, with NO unplanned down time for the last 3 years.

[Goodwatch]

Originally Posted by JJ Irani

What the hell is SAP? And, yes, I don't have time to fek around with Google!!

You are a sap JJ!

[JJ Irani]

Originally Posted by Goodwatch

You are a sap JJ!

SAP = Sane All-round Person!!

[Goodwatch]

Originally Posted by Atomic

Nevertheless... I love posting this:

Yes, tell 'em John, he's slacking and just plain lazy to do some research. It beats me how he can work in a museum where a lot of research is being done! You're just plain lazy JJ

[JJ Irani]

Originally Posted by Goodwatch

Yes, tell 'em John, he's slacking and just plain lazy to do some research. It beats me how he can work in a museum where a lot of research is being done! You're just plain lazy JJ

LOL! Ironically, when I'm at work, I'm on Google ever so often researching some of the artefacts for more detail. Once at home, I hate Google!!

Originally Posted by JJ Irani

What the hell is SAP? And, yes, I don't have time to fek around with Google!!

Well here SAP stands for "Say A Prayer!" LOL!

Originally Posted by Avalon

Well here SAP stands for "Say A Prayer!" LOL!

What if there is not god?

[JJ Irani]

I wonder at which point this thread was hijacked?

Originally Posted by Goodwatch

Al, that sounds very familiar. My company changed from tailor made mainframe software to JD Edwards One World XE a couple of years ago. Except for the branch I work. We have invested heavily in IBM AS/400’s (now iSeries i520) and bespoke software. We did an extensive study on the impact, both financially and on the user experience and presented the outcome to the Board. We kept our own systems but take part in the finance module. The whole project was dubbed “PEPI, Package Enabled Process Improvement” and cost a whopping 65 million Euro. Why the decision was made still baffles me but the success is low, the aggravation high and the overall costs have risen. The first year was a disaster, the other branches actually had to hire more staff to battle the increased workload. Indeed, what took 1 minute on the familiar ‘green screens’ took 15 minutes or more on the new system and the number of steps to complete an order tripled. It took an other year and more money to stabilize the system that was plagued by a lot of unplanned down time. Our humble AS/400’s have had an average of 1 hour unplanned and 16 hours planned (archiving and program maintenance) per year, with NO unplanned down time for the last 3 years.

Our company has been spending a million dollars a week on this thing for the past 6 months (hardware, software, and manpower). Still, we are not even close to being ready 3 weeks before the "go live" date. But as the executives will do, we are forging ahead regardless of the consequences. The big cheese that came to our session this morning said that "many companies have been buried by making this kind of change"..........I'm not sure those words accomplished what he was hoping they would.

I am not resistant to change in the way some are, but the sheer scale of this thing worries me, and also the fact they are so far behind. If it takes me longer to do a task that's fine as long as the bottom line is being looked after by someone. And as large companies like mine will do, some of the resources are already moving on to the next locations to have this implemented, before they are even done here! It should be a wild ride!

[Goodwatch]

Originally Posted by Avalon

Our company has been spending a million dollars a week on this thing for the past 6 months (hardware, software, and manpower). Still, we are not even close to being ready 3 weeks before the "go live" date. But as the executives will do, we are forging ahead regardless of the consequences. The big cheese that came to our session this morning said that "many companies have been buried by making this kind of change"..........I'm not sure those words accomplished what he was hoping they would.

The person who initiated all this (the former CIO, Chief Information Officer), saw his chance and left for 'personal reasons' in the midst of the transition! After some research I found out that he did this with his former employer as well Rats always leave a sinking ship One of our suppliers, one of the largest suppliers of steel piping, almost went bankrupt after their SAP implementation and it took them 2 years to get on their feet again They couldn't get the order process right again and lost a lot of customers who went looking for another supplier.

[Launch Mini]

Being an accountant, most of my clients are relatively small, I know the pain we go through implementing new systems for them. I could barely imagine the stress your going through with a major change in a multi million ( okay Billion) dollar company.
I think, once it is in place, you need to treat yourself to a nice new watch. ( ie Paneria LOL).
I can sell you one, if and only if you promise not to open the case until your cheque has cleared my bank.

Originally Posted by Launch Mini

I can sell you one, if and only if you promise not to open the case until your cheque has cleared my bank.

LOL! Are you originally from Quebec?

(I know the answer is no, by the way)