EZ-Links & NETS

Dear Dr. Peterson,

I must thank you for giving me the opportunity to attend the consultant presentation on yesterday.  Unfortunately due to an unpredictable predicament I am unable to attend today’s executive meeting to discuss the key takeaways from the presentation.  However, I would like to present to you my observations on the case and further discuss new possibilities for us.

The consultants did a great job providing us the key aspects which made the merger between EZ-Links and NETS a success.  Knowing that our achievement is viewed so highly by others as a methods of converting a majority of a population to function in a cashless manner is something we should be very proud of.

However, this presentation brought to light a few subjects which we should beginning discussing for any other future implementations.  The use of a third party was the key facture for our success.  The third party helped mollify the merger by being the neutral party between both EZ-Links and NETS.  The neutrality allowed them to understand and EZ-Links concerns with the merger and give them peace of mind as they believe their needs were being fully fulfilled; the same applied to NETS.

For future project implementations we must consider a third, neutral, party as an avenue to pursue in order to succeed. 

With this, I would like to thank you again for this opportunity.

If there are any questions or concerns, please let me know as I would be more than happy to answer them for you.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Couto

Best Practices Applied To Bombardier’s Mass ERP Implementation

Dear Dr. Peterson,

Let me begin by apologizing for my absence at today’s executive board meeting.  Unfortunately circumstances out of my control have forced me to be away from the office today.  As a result, I am writing this letter to provide my insight on the presentation given to us by the RP Consultant representatives in regards to the continuation of our massive ERP system implementation.

The consultants were able to provide us with clear Best Practice suggestions to put forward in the implementation of the new ERP system in the remaining Bombardier’s plants.  Out of the 10 best Practices provided there are a few I must say stand out the most and cannot be overlooked in anyway.  In our first launch clearly defined objectives were not set forward towards in order to have all employees involved in the implementation.  The key requirements that were needed from the plant were not clearly described which caused increased help needed from the help desk.  This was due to the ineffective information provided by the knowledgeable employees during the blueprint creation.  Management involvement was one of Bombardier’s biggest challenge which improved dramatically during the implementation in the Saint Laurent plant.  However, the involvement of Management will vary from each plant as resistance will continue to exist.  So emphasis on the need for this new system will be crucial. 

Bombardier’s focus must remain on Management.  They must be made aware that they have to transmit all information provided to them, to all employees, even the little guy.  Management will also require additional training, perhaps more so than others.  Along with Management training, the old system most the removed when launching the new system.  This will encourage employees to actually study and learn all the ins and outs of the new system making implementation quicker and effective.  A back-up could be available to the manager of the plant in order to perform tasks that are urgent.

If Bombardier is looking for successful future ERP system implementations then each plant must be look at as an individual.  This will help with creating objectives for that plant as individuals within each plant will vary, more so, at the Management level.

With this, I hope this message was clearly transmitted and my observations and objectives were understood.  Now I understand how crucial a clear message is and how it could possibly effect the success of our future implementations. 

If further clarification is needed, please do not hesitate in contact me.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Couto

Contactless e-Purse Application Standard (CEPAS)

The innovative merger of two major card issuers in Singapore resulted in the Contactless e-Purse Application Standard (CEPAS) system.  This new system allowed for users to perform multiple transactions from different issuers on one single card.  Multiple payments, for example, taxi and rail transport, car park and bus usage could all be paid using this one card.

Major card Issuers in Singapore

      1.       Land Transport Authority (LTA)

a.       Monopolized the public transit market

b.      Promoted the launch of magnetic farecards

                                                               i.      Magnetic farecards were easily used

                                                             ii.      In Hong Kong, contactless smart cards allowed for commuters to use their farecards between different operators and networks with the fare values being prorated at the end of each day

                                                            iii.      EZ-Link cards allowed for tap-and-go card payments (owned by a subsidiary of LTA)

      2.       Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore (NETS)

a.       Dominated the private car park payment schemes and retail payments

b.      Was a pioneer in the establishment of the cashless payment platform

                                                               i.      Allow ATM cards to make consumer purchases and bill payments

                                                             ii.      CashCard allowed for parking fees and toll charges payments

c.       Major competitor amongst credit and debit cards as consumer purchases were allow at certain locations

The CEPAS initiative was to bring all these providers together into one single card and create the e-purse allowing users to use one card for all their transactions.  This goal was driven by the need to decrease the amount of cash used amongst the population.

CEPAS Plan

      1.       Merge multiple payment applications into one card

      2.       Minimize source duplications and created greater synergy

      3.       Allow multiple entities to create their own access keys in one single card

      4.       Designed with 3 commands – ReadPurse , Debit and Credit

      5.       Using EZ-Link cards together with the Magnetic Farecards and CashCards all in one

      6.       Offer exclusive deals through the NETS and EZ-Links loyalty program rewards cards

Benefits were visible right after the launch.  Users were pleased with their cards, the security provided by the used of individual keys which were translated into CashCard for transportation, Credit or Debit.  Viewing capability of their accounts online also increased interest.  Scope of fares were increased to include long-distance fares.  LTA experienced a substantial decrease of missed transactions due to transactions upload at the end of each day from the transportation departments. 

Barriers

      1.       Getting merchants to install new terminals to allow for such payments

a.       Merchants were given incentives in new terminals were installed

                                                               i.      Waived setup fees

                                                             ii.      Waived terminal rental fees

                                                            iii.      Locked and capped transaction fees

      2.       Consumers, mainly in the taxi sector, continued to use cash

a.       About 80% still used cash

                                                               i.      One of Singapore’s largest taxi cap operator launched a new contactless payment system which accepted all major cards

                                                             ii.      CEPAS cards were capped at S$0.30 per fare while others cards had a 10% charge added to the fare causing more consumers to want to use the a CEPAS card to decrease taxi fare charges

Overall the initiative was well planned out and key problems well addressed.  The solution to offer incentives and rewards in order to promote the usage of the new cards was the best solution for the CEPAS Initiative.

Planning A Massive ERP System Implementation

Bombardier is a key player in the transportation industry and aerospace industry.  In 2007 they reported $14.8 billion in revenue; 45% in their transportation sector and 55% in the aerospace.  In the aerospace industry, they manufacture commercial and regional aircrafts.  With rapid acquisitions, they found themselves lacking communication amongst their facilities and believed the biggest problem to be in their inventory visibility.  The implementation of an ERP system was severely needed to maintain operations.  Goal is to seamlessly be able to share data throughout the sites.

Current Aerospace Facilities

• 6 in Canada
• 6 in the United States
• 1 in Northern Ireland

Symptoms of old Legacy System – Bombardier Legacy System (BMS)

• Sites had become dependent
• Applying data accuracy
• No software communication between facilities
• Stand-alone user-developed databases were being used throughout the company
• Very poor data management

First attempt at an ERP system implementation was discontinued mid 2000 at a $130 million cost due to the lack of employees involvement, outdated vision and business processes.  With this outcome, the second attempt had a better chance as they were able to pinpoint key problems.

The Bombardier Manufacturing Information System (BMIS) – SAP Enterprise System

1.       Creating a Vision by utilizing senior employees to analyze, teach and create the vision they require form the new ERP system, then propose it to the employees

2.       Establish a BMIS team to provide extensive knowledge of their department and hands-on preparation

3.       Blueprints were mapped out utilizing Managers of facilities in workshops in order to receive information required by them, as well as, provide them with insight on the program.

a.       This was difficult as some Managers could not find the time to attend and send lower-level managers, defeating the purpose of the workshops

b.      Showed reluctance from some business units with their involvement in the implementation

c.       This design phase ran over schedule due to documentation of procedures not reflecting what management wanted

4.       Implementation was to be done one plant at a time as full implementation was to take 6 years

a.       Choosing which plant to implement first was based on which aircraft assembly plan would drive growth with their new model

b.      Implementation of a limited SAP was done in order to decrease training time as well as focus the plants needs and requirements on specific areas

5.       Testing phase

a.       Testing the work steps and scenarios

                                                   i.      The team found out there were many steps missed by the appointed analysts from each plant during the blueprint phase

                                                 ii.      This was due to lack of knowledge and management who did not send the bester qualified employee

                                                iii.      Resulted in implementation teams and plants to be frustrated as these had already been approved during the design phase

Addition projects done throughout the BMIS Implementation

·         Revamping the procurement function

o   Roles and responsibilities were modified in the Procurement functions

§  Planners – determined how much inventory was required for an aircraft

§  Buyers – dealt directly with the suppliers of parts

o   This was believed to be beneficial as the main problem from the beginning was inventory visibility

      ·         Data cleansing within each plant under the supervision of data cleansing teams

o   Once data was cleansed it was sent to a BMIS team who will convert all the data from all the plants and prepare it to be entered into the new system

o   Data was not cleansed accurately and had to be cleansed after the system implementation

§  Took 9 months to correct data using new system which no one new how to use efficiently

      ·         Getting rid of the methods and engineering software and replacing it with a new one

o   Implemented a new part of SAP called SAP Workbench

§  It showed to provide better assistance with manufacturing information and work instructions

§  Created additional pressure on third party consulting firm which believed it would not meet the SAP deadline as it had to perform all previous steps on the SAP Workbench system now

Go Live Time

Even though super users were trained in the new system prior to Go Live, which some of them weren’t even aware that their job descriptions were changing and that a new system was even being implemented, training was as successful as it possibly could be.

Complications

      ·         Super users were not fully trained as some walked out of the courses claiming they did not need to be            there

      ·         Some employees did not know a new system was being implemented

      ·         Users became too dependent on support employees creating backlog on help with queries

      ·         New help desk had to be established

      ·         Employees still used SAP legacy system functions as it was still available to them

      ·         Roll-out problems occurred, for example automated faxed purchased orders

o   Were sent out every time a purchase order came through

o   Solved by putting in a pull and sent out once a week

o   Caused some vendors not to receive any for a month

      ·         Managers did not use the new system to request automated reports

o   Instead asked employees to created them the old fashion way

Conclusion

Bombardier implementation over all did not go as terrible as it could have gone.  All these occurrences happened in the first launching pant, Mirabel site, which viewed it as a success.  All the practices used during the implementation were necessary to achieve success in the end. 

However, a few practices should have been more enforced by the executives.  The support mainly from the plant Manager at Mirabel, should have been their main priority.  Most problems were with Management and lower-level management not passing on the required information to their employees in order to prepare them.  Transparency was not achieved by Management but the new System allowed for that correction.

Another which should have been addressed was the fact that the old legacy system was still available to the users in that plant.  This delayed the learning process as the users would solve their problems using the old system instead of trying to figure out how to use the new system.

Recommendation

• Force the users to utilize only the new system by shutting down their user access to the old system.
• Enforce participation of the Managers and mandate their staff be notified of new updates.
• Forgo with the super users and hold massive workshops.  Since implementation is performed on a plant basis then train them all by department at the same time
• Create better tracking system of help requests within the help desk team

PMO-Light As Suggested

Dear Mr. Strider,

It was great speaking to you, Mr. Strider, and the rest of the board members yesterday after the presentation from the consultants.  As you may know, I will not be able to attend our decision making meeting today due to a last minute meeting which has taken me away from the office.  I thank you first and foremost for readying over my overview on the presentation given to us by the hired consultants on the subject of our Project Management Office implementation and apologize for my absence.

Getting to the point.  The consultants were well versed on the matter and provided us with one of the solutions which we were debating on already. Out of the solutions, going with a PMO-light, was the best one as per the consultants.  We were shown how essentially PMO-light will give us the same outcome as a PMO-heavy would.  The only differences that were identified were that the PMO-light is more financially feasible, as well as, time consuming.

If AtekPC makes the decision to go with the PMO-light, we will be face with a prolonged launch time.  This will be due to the PMO resources having to be pulled away from their current jobs to work on this implementation.  We will have 4 PMO’s available only, which currently have other positions within the company.  We will be making a safe financial decision with PMO-light, however, expenses will be generated throughout the company due to additional resources or overtime having to be paid.  This is to compensate for the removal of the 4 PMO’s from their current positions. 

The major reason why a PMO-heavy could not be applied, other than its large cost, is due to AtekPC’s corporate culture.  Throughout the company’s whole existence, somewhere along the lines, formality amongst employees and towards projects has slipped away.  If a PMO-heaving is implemented, it will create animosity among the employees and management, which will infect cause AtekPC to lose employees, slowing production even more.

There is an additional alternative to be looked at here.  The possibility of training the existing Team Lead’s within each department to function with additional PMO roles.  The cost to train them will be less compared to PMO-heavy but could possibly similar or less then PMO-light.  Courses could be bought through the Corporate Education Group.  They offer virtual instructor lead or traditional classroom courses.  They are also capable of molding the course so that the subject matter relates only to the company or even the department.  On average course can range from $3,000 to $1,000, with each being for a duration of 4 days to 9 days, at 4hrs to 6hrs each day.  This would allow for continues work flow while training and procedures are being done and created.

This is not an easy decision to make and much taught has to go into this.  The best solution would be to go with PMO-light.  Not only will the rest of the employees already know the PMO’s, maintaining the corporate culture, but it will be the best financial decision at this moment.  If later on the project managers prove their worth by extensive evaluations, then a PMO-heavy could be solution to move forward with.

I hope my overview of the presentation and the results applied to our current dilemma prove to be significant and will facilitate in the decision making.

If there are any doubts or questions, please let me know.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Couto

POS-Heavy or POS-Light at AtekPC

AtekPC, a US PC maker company, has been growing since 1984 and greatly benefited from the increased demand for PC’s in the 1990s.  With such high sales during that period, AtekPC did not worry much on cutting costs and creating budgets in order to continue to be profitable.  Now with decreased demand of PCs, AteckPC is looking to implement a Project Management Office (PMO), which will streamline current project procedures and standardize them in order to become more efficient.  This is necessary in order for the development of other portable devices like tablets.

Current Dilemma with PMO implementation,

• Current departments have their own culture
• IT department perform projects as they come
• If a project with higher importance presents itself, all other projects get dropped
• Projects are followed through by the Lead Analyst who has full knowledge in their department
• The completion of projects are performed very quickly and effectively
• Procedures and Process’ vary but final results are achieved
• Analysis and lead analysis work very informally
• Informal approach works for them as it creates self-significance/self-worth in the company
• Promotes innovative ideas and initiative from employees

• New PMO will be costly and funding’s will have to come from somewhere
•   Resources acquired at the expense of other operational teams

•  Evaluating and measuring the Project Management
•  Data has never been collected previously to use as a measuring tool
• How to collect data now and make it standardized?

• Who will PMO report to?
• Director of Applications Development?
• Chief Information Officer?
• Vice-President
• Or create someone in the PMO department to manage the PMOs

• To implement PMO-heavy or PMO-light

Current alternatives to the implementation of PMO

• PMO-heavy
• Using current 4 PMO already existent and hire additional PMO
• Additional cost also time consuming on training new PMO on specific department
• Would change company culture and Analysts and Lead Analyst would now report to PMO

• PMO-light
• Using only current 4 PMO already existent
• Allocating them to departments which they already have knowledge of
• Less costly but still changing company culture of working informally

• Apply more responsibility to Leads in their departments
• Creation of a PMO not required
• No additional cost
• Additional responsibilities given to Leads
• Leads would create procedures using personnel knowledge and experience
• Department manager would follow up with Leads in regards to completion

Recommendation

Give the Team Leads more responsibility in the implementation of procedures and process’.  This would maintain the current company culture without discouraging employees.  In the IT Department, the Lead Analyst would use their knowledge to create a more or less operational process for the analysts to follow using their input and coming up with a more concise way of performing projects.  Additional resources will not have to be taken from other departments, or additional costs incurred.  Team Leads are already evaluated by their Managers and will be able to continue to be in the same manner.  Micromanagement is not required in a company, specially if the company culture itself would be affected by it.

New Enhanced POS System For Zara

Dear Mr. Salgado and Mr. Sánchez,

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to sit in on the presentation given to us by the hired consultants.  It was a very significant presentation in order to help us make our decision on whether or not to implement a new OS system, or to remain with what we currently have.  With my absence at today’s meeting, I would like to present to you my takeaways and personal opinion on the matter.

The consultant’s recommendation is to implement a new Enhanced POS system.  They were able to show the benefits of such enhancement with visual and easily followed aids.  We were able to see that new Enhanced POS, would allow for the store employees to easily upload all the days’ sales from each individual cash register instantly and not have to go through the whole process of saving it on a DOS.  As per the consultants, this will help us manage our internal data efficiently and provide Zara with additional information on its customers, which could be useful for the Marketing Department allowing them to send out advertisement.

The benefits put forward with the new Enhance POS system will allow Zara to continuously update the system with new upgrades as they come along.  The synching of tablets, for the store managers, and the POS systems will be a great future upgrade but to get there we must implement the Enhanced POS system first. Costs associated to this upgrade will be very high for Zara, which the consultants pointed out very well.  However, they did not provide a better solution on how to implement this which is why I believe this can be done with a very well thought out plan.

If Zara were to begin testing using the internal IT personnel, a better idea of how long it would take and how costly it would be, could be achieved.  With this, planning would be simpler as this could possibly be done in phases.  The first phase could be to implement the new POS system in a few local stores, this would allow for testing and the closeness of the stores to the IT department will be beneficial in monitoring the implementation.  Second phase would consist of the implementation being done on a regional level, by performing the updates one region at a time and allowing for the stores to adapt to the new system.  With this, countries could be targeted next, until every store is in sync with the new system.  Which will then allow them to communicate with each other in order to fill the customer needs if a certain item is available at a different store, they could request that store to send it to them. 

I am not saying that this will be a quick and smooth implementation.  We will definitely encounter roadblocks on the way but it is achievable.  Estimated time frame for implementation would be 2 to 4 years, but if Zara does not want to find itself stuck in a situation where new stores cannot be opened due to its current POS manufacture terminating production, this will have to be done.

With this, I thank you for reading over my takeaways and would like to apologize for my absence today.

If there are any further questions, please feel free to contact me as I will be more than happy to answer them.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Couto

To OS or Not To OS

Sometimes keeping up with new technologies might not suit your company.  In Zara’s case, they have found themselves in a predicament where a decision has to be made to update their Disk Operating System (DOS) to another Operating System (OS) or just keep it simple as it is.  Known worldwide, Zara was founded in 1975 by Amancio Ortega, and has been a large leader in the fashion world.  They have a very unique business plan which has been their biggest reason for being successful over the years. 

Business Model

•         Fabricate clothing on a demand basis
•         Receive feedback from store personnel on customer wants
•        Allow for little to no inventory in order to decrease costs and sell what you make
•       Create system which specifically directs certain styles to specific stores based on sales and local fashion styles
•        Store personnel create orders and choose what they want to sell based on their own market research within their store

However, with new technologies there could be threat of the company falling behind and not being able to operate any longer using DOS. 

Current DOS Process

•          1 POS connected to the internet per store (total on average 5 per store)
•          Several Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) per store to allow for ordering and garment returns
•          Employees copy daily sales totals from each POS onto a floppy disk
•          At the end of the day floppy disk is transferred to POS connected to internet to allow for data to be sent to Headquarters in La Coruna
•          PDAs would have to be connected to set POS in order to send orders as well as update with new items available

Zara’s current contract with the POS manufacturer does not state that they will continue to produce the POS terminals which function with DOS and have stated that Zara is their only customer who still uses DOS.  This could be a future risk; if the manufacturer ends production of floppy disk compatible terminals Zara will not be able to open new stores and until they update all the systems as the new stores would not have the equipment and software required to run.

New OS Process

•          POSs would be connected to Headquarters at all times
•          Orders could be filled using new easier used POS with a mouse

The new OS process seems simple enough.  Daily sales are sent directly to headquarters, connectivity to other stores would allow to order items from them instead of headquarters.

Pros

•  Customer demands can be easily met as items can be order quicker from other stores
• Decrease closing time as daily sales will already have been sent to headquarters
• Visual the customer has of the system behind the counter will be attractive to them

Cons

•  Store employees will stand behind the counter looking at new items that could be ordered instead of walking through the store and speaking to the customers and listening to their wants
• Market research feedback can be skewed now as employees requested items might be based on personal choice
• Programing time allocated in corporate will be increased to 20,000 hours required to implement new software

o   Meaning 10 employees out of the 50 IT personnel will have to allocated to this implementation in order to implement it in 1 year

Alternative OS providers

•  Windows first year €170, every year after that €30, per POS terminal
• Unix first year €185, every year after that €25, per POS terminal
•  Linux every year €80

With all the necessary hardware, internet service, programing time and training time required, Zara will be looking at a lower cost with Unix of €19,261,545 for the implementation of a new OS system if attempted to implement in 1 year.  Not including the additional salary of additional employees which might need to be hired in order to facility the transition.

Recommendation

As the process to a new OS system will be costly, I would recommend to perform the transition one city at a time.  This would allow for the cost to be spread out and not hinder current operations.  Yes costs are high for this upgrade but very much so needed.  Without a legal contract stating that the POS compatible with the DOS will continue to be produced Zara is currently putting it’s whole future at risk since at any moment the manufacturer can stop production making Zara vulnerable.