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RUNNING HEAD: ERP SYSTEM IMPLIMENTATION PROJECT 1

ERP SYSTEM IMPLIMENTATION PROJECT

Introduction

Selecting the right project to do from so many available projects is a difficult task. Making choice on the project to do may sound obvious, however, choosing the right project increases the chances of being successful in the project. People should take enough time to choose the kind of project that they intent to do. The success and completion of the project is also affected by the time the individual spent in choosing the project and setting up for success right at the start of the project. It is very fundamental to apply some practically perfect filters to the process of selecting of the project to make sure that the good ones get through and the bad ones are disallowed. This process is a part of the practically perfect project management method as it is the initial step in any successful project. The process of project selection begins with all the potential project going through a repeatable and rigorous and appropriate selection process (Frank, 2011).

The project chosen is the installation of the ERP system. The first question before starting this project is knowing whether there is a need for this system. ERP system purchase should be considered if the firm is faced with issues of disparate data, time lag and operational inefficiencies. The firm that is in an excessive need of manual labor, hardships in reconciling financial and problems in coordination of inventory, sales and manufacturing and extracting sound business data out of the system needs to have this system. There is also an increased need for IT for maintaining the firm operations and the system integration. These are some of the things that make the ERP project necessary. The knowledge on the products offered by the firm, the objectives in the IT and operational infrastructure are critical in choosing the ERP system.

Prior to choosing this project, several factors were considered. There are several decision points that need to be looked at before the project starts. The selection criteria that the project team need to know before the start of the project is needed. There are several considerations to guide in the selection of this project.

Identifying the stakeholders

The ERP system is not like other small software packages in a company that only effects only a section of the firm. It is a large system that has impact on every sector of the business. This makes the stakeholders of this project to include the users from all parts of the company and every level of the company that is affected by the system. This includes the end users who get the information collected or the workers who find that the processes of the firm they are used to have been changed. The stakeholders and the users who are involved in this project are divided into four categories namely: the upper management and executives, the departmental personnel, the IT department and any person in the organization affected by the changes of the processes (Frank, 2011).

All the stakeholders need to be involved in every step of the project. However, this is difficult. During the initial stage of this project, the key stakeholders need are the IT department members and they are needed to offer detailed technical data needed for mechanics of the installation. The managers of the various departments are also needed in this stage. This people will be ideal to discuss how the installation will impact their departments and how the system can be best installed (Shacklett, 2015).

The upper level executives and management are the main stakeholders who are involved in the requirements and the design phase of this project. These are the end users of the data. The users are less involved during the customization phase. Their only duty on this phase is to give the verification that what was asked for during the design phase is indeed what they had asked for. The testing phase requires all the stakeholders to be involved during the usability and the functionality testing. The work on this phase is to assess specifically whether the system is complete and whether it can run in long run (Frank, 2011).

The Project Charter

With the increased customers and clients demands, the company wants to improve on its documentation and service delivery. The advancement of technology has enabled the improvement of the services that firm provides to its customers. The incorporation of the information technology has led to enhanced customer satisfaction (Bradford, M., 2015). The ERP system is one of the latest advancement in the technology that has helped companies and institutions to make their work more efficient. This project will implement an ERP system in the firm and improve its efficiency in the customers’ service delivery.

The project goals and objectives

The goal of this project is to implement an integrated ERP system that will support the strategic goals of the firm.

The project objectives

Within the general goal stated above, the following are more objectives

• Enhance the quality of the firm’s online customer and workers’ experience via secure self-service options

• Develop an international service delivery reputation

• Implement business intelligence tools to support decision making

• Improve the company’s business processes and

• Lower the IT costs

Project Scope

The project scope will contain the following:

• Identify management foundation

• staff portal

• Workers’ pay

• Human resource

• Finance

• Customer relationship management

• Data Warehousing

Approach

The project committee will jointly articulate the strategic direction for the ERP integration initiative and manage the activities through the Project manager office which has the representatives of the project stakeholders. The project management office will therefor offer guidance for the work to be done by various work groups.

Deliverables

The main deliverables are:

• System implementation

• Business process improvement

• Knowledge transfer

Roles and responsibilities

The roles and the responsibilities of the stakeholders are as follows:

1. Project sponsor

The project sponsor is the champion of the project and he will:

• offer the strategic direction for the task,

• obtain the funding approval for the project and

• Work with the committee to facilitate timely decisions.

1. Implementation Steering Committee

The committee will:

• Launch the complete direction of the project.

• Evaluate and Approve the Project Charter.

• Guarantee the accessibility of suitable resources.

• Deliver decision support.

• Offer management support to the project team.

1. Budget Review Committee.

• Review the project budget.

• Review project expenses.

1. Project Director.

The project director together with the project management will provide the guidance on how, where and when some activities in the project will be done.

1. Consultant Team Leads

The team will work in concurrence with the Project Director to make sure the effective implementation of the ERP System suite of applications.

1. Team Leads.

The team leads will help to coordinate project work for their individual project team, which characteristically exemplifies individual groups of applications.

1. Project management

The project management involves the activities that are necessary to make sure that the project is successfully completed. The activities include:

• Project Control,

• Project Planning,

• Status Reporting,

• Issue Management,

• Change Management,

• Risk Management, and

• Quality Management.

Challenges

The implementation of the ERP system is very complicated and calls for high need for change management and constant, effective communication of project details and milestones. Communication networks must be established early and supported in the entire life of the project.

The statement of work

The project startup

This includes the activities that are engaged in the project initiation, planning and the transition from the starting to the execution. Project initiation involves getting the project off to a formal start where each person knows their roles and agreeing on the job to be done, confirmation of the good business reasons for the project and making sure that every risk involved is assessed.

Site preparation

Site preparation involves all the activities that are engaged in the review and the analysis of the present operational environment of several business surroundings, the set-up of the technical environment, the identification of the requirements of the data conversion and the interface and the documentation of the forms and the training materials.

Project execution

The project execution process involves all the activities included such as

• Identification and resolution issues

• The set-up, refinement and the confirming of the application modules prototypes according to the implementation timelines

• The developing and testing the interfaces of the system

• Data conversion and loading

• The training of the end users

• The user acceptance testing execution and

• The cutover to production

The Work Breakdown Structure

The Responsibility Assignment Matrix

Risk Analysis and Response

Systematic and planned risk management procedure is very critical to keep these projects on time and within the budget with all the requirements fulfilled. The ERP projects are complex tasks for businesses. The risks associated with this project includes timelines and project scheduling risks, managing processes and technological change associated with the ERP implementation and functional area involvement. These factors are closely related, and they can have direct adverse effects on the project. These features make the risk management in the project challenging and uncertain.

Timelines and project scheduling: Many enterprises immensely underestimate the project complexity and the resources that are needed to implement ERP system effectively. This leads to problems in the planning for the unpredictable likelihoods that push back the project deliverables and schedules. This is aggravated by the interdependencies that are related with the ERP. In the ERP implementation project, if one area faces a setback, the other areas are also impacted, and the problem is compounded. Many ERP implementations are affected scheduling and contingency risks because of the compounding effects of failing to meet the timelines. Therefore this is one of the highest risks that affect the key strategic goals (Aloini, 2012). This risk can be mitigated by establishing milestones that every project team can develop plans around.

Managing process and Technological factors: A common drawback of the project management is assuming that the ERP project is exclusively an IT project. Nevertheless, post-ERP implementation is universal such that many firms' processes are, at minimum impacted by the system and sometimes are entirely integrated or removed. Change management is wider than the ERP systems, though the managers of the change management should work together with the project managers of ERP to make sure that there is an effective transition of post ERP (Huang, 2004).

Change management in the ERP project should commence early. This would create awareness across the enterprise of the ERP project, and the effects and advantages of the change to the end users, technology, and the business processes (Huang, 2004). Later in the life cycle of the project, change management develops a more specific awareness of the impacts of the ERP on the job design and the organizational structure.

Functional area involvement: Another risk in ERP system implementation project is the lack of participation from all functional areas. There should be a full-time process owner with the obligation of making decisions concerning the business process that will follow after the implementation process is completed. Additionally, it is very crucial for the management to make a consideration of retaining the talented employees in the owner positions process even permanently (Huang, 2004).

Conclusively, since the implementing of an ERP system is vast and pervasive, especially if it is the first time the implementation is being made, the risks are equally as predominant in scale and breadth. As a result, companies make many mistakes when they fail to focus efforts adequately on both the pre and post period implementation (Aloini, 2012). There should be procedure plans to address every major risk item and co-ordinate individual risk plans with the overall project plan. Risk planning makes sure that schedules and cost estimates are adjusted to certify that enough time is taken to develop and execute risk mitigation measures properly when needed.

Estimated Time

This is a major project and organizations have to invest a lot of time and resources to make sure that the software will create tangible ROI for the enterprise. This project is estimated to take 14 months. It was projected to start on 3rd January, 2017 to 10th February, 2018.

Project Schedule (Gantt chart)

Communication Plan

Communication objectives

The main communication objectives for the project are:

• To make sure that the message delivered is consistent

• To gain and promote support for the Project Management Improvement Project

• Offer timely and accurate information about the project, and

• Encourage the use of project management best practices

The purpose of communication and audiences

On this section identifies the audiences that are targeted by the communication plan, and the aim of communicating with every audience.

Communication message and delivery

This part outlines the main communication information to be delivered, the targeted audiences and the means of the message delivery, the communication and the frequency of the delivery.

Conclusion

ERP system implementation project is a major project. This make it to require much time and it is also costly. Planning well for this project prior to its start is very important. The aspects discussed above are very important in this project. Following every step well will ensure that the resources are utilized well and the project is completed under the projected time and budget.

References

Aloini, D., et al. (2012). Risk management in ERP project introduction: Review of the literature. Information & Management, 44(6), 547-567.

Bradford, M., & North Carolina State University. (2015). Modern ERP: Select, implement & use today's advanced business systems.

Egeland, B. (2014). Planning your Project like a Pro: 7 things to do before starting a project. i2e Consulting

Frank, P. (2011). The Roles of the User in Project Planning an ERP Implementation. Frank Parth and Joy Gumz

Huang, S. M., et al. (2004). Assessing risk in ERP projects: identify and prioritize the factors. Industrial management & data systems, 104(8), 681-688.

Project Management Institute. (2008). A guide to the project management body of knowledge: (PMBOK guide). Newtown Square, Pa: Project Management Institute.

Shacklett, M. (2015). ERP software selection: Is ERP right for you?

Taylor, B., & Dow, W. (2013). Project management communications bible. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.