Nibco's ERP System

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Objectives for adopting an ERP System
NIBCO, Inc., is a medium sized manufacturing company of pipes and fittings with its headquarters based in the U.S with annual revenue of $460 million. NIBCO has implemented SAP R/3 across 10 plants and 4 new distribution centres in December 1997 with a Big Bang approach. The management team of NIBCO was of the opinion that the company was of “information poor” and needed to “cut loose” from its existing legacy systems which does not communicate with each other and replace them with common integrated systems for finance, materials management, production, and sales/distribution. CIS3009 Enterprise Systems in Practice Assignment 3 Case Study Specification 2014, USQ, SEC, Viewed 16 October 2014, < http://usqstudydesk.usq.edu.au/m2/mod/folder/view.php?id=276568>. …show more content…
All users move to the new system on a given date. As there are two sides for a coin in the same way there are advantages and disadvantages associated with the Big Bang Approach.
Advantages:
. Company does not have to operate their business in two different systems i.e. one on the legacy systems and the other on the new system until the business is moved entirely into the new system and the end users getting comfortable with the new system.
. Everyone in the company moves forward on the same day
. Shorter period for Implementation
. Lowers the cost
. Training is required only on the new system
. Pain and frustration of working continuously to meet the target deadline is condensed into one time period, not drawn out
Disadvantages:
.Risk is high
.Things could go wrong in a number of ways
. Small issues or details could skip out in the rush
. The employees should spend extra time apart from their work in attending the training programs to learn the new system
. Testing is more strenuous prior to the implementation
. Failures or issues in one part of the system could cause problems in the other parts of the …show more content…
If there is no Knowledge management process in place in a company some issues may arise which are loss of knowledge in the case when an employee leaves the company, burden on the users to learn and make use of the new technology, forgetting system features and misuse of the system. These issues mostly arise after the post implementation phase when the system is being used extensively by the company. However, these issues can be prevented well in advance if there is a Knowledge management process in the company. Knowledge development and training is one of the areas that need to be focused while implementing an ERP system. Knowledge is gained and lost during the phases of ERP implementation process. The project team should always ensure that there is a well-defined process in place to successfully transfer the knowledge and skills to an existing staff or new or team members. It should be an integral part from day one of the implementation plan. All the aspects of the Implementation process should be documented. From the perspective of project management a repository should be maintained for project monitoring and tracking, communication, collaboration, subject matter expertise, lessons-learned. From the perspective of Operations a document that maps the business processes to the ERP software should be documented. From the perspective of IT architecture of hardware and software, network
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