I am currently struggling with this particular case study. Just would like some extra insight. Thanks!

Catherine Barkley, manager of purchasing and accounts payable at Hemingway College in Fresno, California, stared at the latest e-mail from one of her staff. She had less than three months to take her department “live” on the new enterprise resource planning (ERP) system and problems continued to pour in. It was now April 6th and Catherine wondered what action she should take in light of the tight deadline she faced. Catherine was expected to make her recommendations to her boss, Dan Kavaliers, in a meeting the following day.

HEMINGWAY COLLEGE

 Hemingway College was a community college with approximately 12,000 students. It offered training and educational programs in the areas of applied arts, business, health care, human services, hospitality, literacy, academic upgrading, life skills, computers, technology, apprenticeship, and English as a second language. All of its 78 post-secondary certificate and diploma programs remained popular and student intake was on the rise. The college prized itself on its trusted position within the community, citing that almost every fifth person in the city had passed through its classrooms. Catherine reported to Dan Kavaliers, the vice president of finance and corporate services. She was responsible for a staff of 11 people, including four buyers, an accounts payable manager, four accounts payable clerks, a traffic and customs officer, and an administrative assistant. Most purchases were controlled centrally, although some departments had recently lobbied for a more decentralized structure.

RESOURCE PLANNING SYSTEM

Two years prior, senior management at Hemingway College decided to implement a new ERP system. Although the old systems provided the basic functionality required, they had become so antiquated and many vendors were discontinuing support for related software and hardware. It was also felt that this would be a good time to integrate various areas—finance, human resources, and student information—as well as upgrade to the latest technology in the market. After a seven-month supplier evaluation process, a cross-functional senior management team, led by the vice president of finance and corporate services and the vice president of administration, selected an out-of-the-box ERP package, EduSoft, which had been successfully installed in similar colleges across North America. The first group to get involved in the implementation of the new ERP system was finance, who implemented a new general ledger, including a coding structure for the new system. The next set of processes to be brought on the new system were the purchasing and accounts payable systems, as they tied in most closely with the general ledger. Successful implementation would ease the transition of the entire purchasing module, and in turn, that of other functional modules as well.

 IMPLEMENTING THE PURCHASING MODULE

Catherine had held her first meeting with EduSoft staff the previous August to start planning the implementation. As team lead for implementing the purchasing module, she quickly realized that there were quite a few challenges ahead. The old in-house system had gradually evolved around the specific policies and needs of the purchasing department. EduSoft, however, had its own functional assumptions on policies and department needs built into the system. Catherine grappled with the issue of whether to try and change the EduSoft system to work with old established policies or to change policies in order to leverage EduSoft’s streamlined built-in processes that seemed to have succeeded in other colleges. Catherine ultimately decided to implement the new streamlined systems, expecting that this decision would yield substantial long-term benefits. From October to December of the previous year, the new purchasing and accounts payable system was tested for the availability of features and for access and security issues. In January, process mapping from the old system to the new one was finished off, and the new system looked set to be rolled out with all features implemented by the end of June.

TRAINING

During January and February, Catherine started weekly half-day meetings with staff to train them and give them hands-on exposure to the new system.

She planned to continue staff training throughout the summer since this was the best time for staff to get acquainted with the new system, as they were mostly free from the distractions of catering to everyday student requirements and issues. Currently, the staff training meetings typically lasted 15-20 minutes held every day or every second day, focused around specific issues that had come up while using the system, rather than the broad-based training sessions on policy and process change matters held earlier. So far, Catherine had been receiving a continual flow of problems encountered by staff trying to use the new system to deliver the functions they wanted.

IMPLEMENTATION SCHEDULE

The current schedule called for purchasing and accounts payable to complete implementation of its modules by the end of June in order that its systems would be functional for the start of the school year in August. The human resources department was scheduled to start implementation of its modules following purchasing, at the beginning of July, so that employee tax and income reporting information could start on January 1st the following year. The director of human resources and vice president of finance and corporate services were adamant that they wanted to avoid running two systems for employee records. Consequently, any delays in implementing the human resource modules would in turn set back overall system implementation by one year. Delaying implementation of the purchasing and accounts payable modules also would create problems. Some old systems had been removed as part of the transition and reverting back to the old systems was not viewed as feasible.

ALTERNATIVES

 In order to complete implementation of her department’s modules on schedule, Catherine felt that she had at least two alternatives. First, Catherine believed that more staff time was needed to implement the modules than originally budgeted. This approach would require her to increase staff overtime dramatically and add temporary staff. Catherine would need to hold a one-week workshop with her staff to clear up systems problems and establish a new project plan. She estimated that staff overtime costs would be approximately $3,000 per week and four temporary staff, at a cost of approximately $2,000 per week, would be required. Even with the extra resources, Catherine remained concerned about the ability of her department to keep up with its normal activities, and ultimately staff burnout, if this alternative was adopted. A second option would be to hire consultants from EduSoft to implement the modules. The consultants would require some support from Catherine’s staff, but there would be no need for additional overtime or temporary staff beyond the current budget. In her conversations with representatives from EduSoft, they had indicated that she should budget $12,000 per week for this service. While this option was more convenient, Catherine was concerned about its higher costs and the implications of using a third party to implement the modules. Catherine had a meeting scheduled with Dan Kavaliers the following morning at 9:00 a.m. and he was expecting an update from her and recommendations as part of a comprehensive plan that would ensure that implementation of the purchasing and accounts payable modules would occur by the end of June.