NIBCO’S “BIG BANG”

NIBCO, Inc., a mid-sized manufacturer of valves and pipe fittings headquartered in the U.S. with $460 million annual revenues, implemented SAP R/3 across its 10 plants and 4 new distribution centers with a Big Bang approach in December 1997. NIBCO management agreed with the Boston Consulting Group recommendation to cut loose from its existing legacy systems and replace them with common, integrated systems for finance, materials management, production, and sales/distribution, such as offered in the ERP packages of major vendors by the second half of the 1990s. However, the company leaders chose not to heed the advice of their consultants, or the current trade press, about taking a slower, phased-in approach. Instead, they developed plans for a Big Bang implementation of all modules (except HR) with a$17 million budget and a project completion date 15 months later that allowed for only a 30-day grace period. The project is led by a triad of NIBCO managers with primary accountabilities for business process, IT, and change management. The case describes the legacy IT environment, the ERP purchase and implementation partner choices, the selection and composition of what came to be called the TIGER team, the workspace design for the project team (TIGER den), the key issues addressed by each project sub-team, the incentive scheme, and the complexity added by a distribution center consolidation initiative that runs behind schedule. The case story ends shortly after the Go Live date, with the project leaders replaying their warnings to the executive team about initial dips in productivity and profits. This case study can be used to demonstrate the tradeoffs between Big Bang versus slower ERP implementation approaches that allow time for organizational learning. Students can identify the technology and organizational risks associated with ERP projects in general, and Big Bang implementations in particular, and then assess how well NIBCO\u27s leaders manage these risks over the life of the project. Specific examples of communications and training initiatives, including ways to achieve employee buy-in, are detailed in the case so that students can better understand change management practices in the context of a major system implementation

NIBCO\u27s Big Bang

This case study can be used to demonstrate the tradeoffs between Big Bang versus slower ERP implementation approaches that allow time for organizational learning. Students can identify the technology and organizational risks associated with ERP projects in general, and Big Bang implementations in particular, and then assess how well NIBCO\u27s leaders manage these risks over the life of the project. Specific examples of communications and training initiatives, including ways to achieve employee buy-in, are detailed in the case so that students can better understand change management practices in the context of a major system implementation. The teaching note includes an epilogue, a framework for analyzing the implementation approach, a teaching guide, and supplementary references

SYSTEMS ANALYSTS IN CHAORDIC ORGANIZATIONS

The aim of this paper is to identify who is a systems analyst in organizations in a turbulent world. We see a need to radically rethink the way in which information systems are developed. There have appeared some efforts to create systems analysis methods for business professionals, for example, Alter (2002) and Bednar (2000). To promote the development of such methods, there is a need to theoretically validate the need for the development. From literature review, we derive a hypothesis that ‘analysis by external agents’ has been at the heart of the practice in organizations. In organizations that fit with the hypothesis, agency costs occur in the form of IS failures because business professionals could not forecast their future of business and are subject to bounded rationality not sufficient to control the agents. Having encountered complexity theory and the turbulent economy of globalism, some practitioners and researchers have recognized the increasing importance of creativity and sustainability of organizations, and started to use a term “chaordic organization” to describe a new type of organizations in contrast to the rationalistic one assumed in the dominant management discourse. We will show the inappropriateness of the hypothesis by revealing the built-in causality in the light of theoretical arguments made by Stacey et al (2000). They derived Transformative Teleology from the review of philosophical thinking, the purpose of which is the continuity and transformation of identity and difference. In chaordic organizations under Transformative Teleology, the future is unpredictable and under perpetual construction. This focuses attention on conversation as the central activity of organizing. This is inconsistent with the notion of ‘analysis by external agents.’ In a chaordic organization, its members create social realities under perpetual construction. Therefore, it is theoretically suggested that systems analysis becomes one of their ongoing activities. New systems analysis methods are required as the tools for sensemaking of their own practice and for interaction between the members. The methods are different from the conventional ones for IT professionals

Using Work System Theory to Achieve Greater Business Value from ERP by Exploring Alternative Design Spaces

This paper explains how various aspects of work system theory (WST) can be applied to achieve greater business value from ERP by assuming that the underlying design spaces encompass much more than the features, configuration, and limitations of ERP software. It uses WST concepts to identify directions for achieving business value that might not be considered thoroughly in ERP implementations that focus primarily on converting from legacy software to ERP software. This paper starts by summarizing basic premises concerning the relationship between work systems and ERP. Focusing on the context of ERP usage, it explains the elements of the two central frameworks in WST, the work system framework and work system life cycle model. Instead of viewing the context as ERP usage or ERP projects, viewing the context as ERP-enabled work system improvement focuses attention on a number of paths toward greater business value that may not be used effectively in current practice. The paper discusses five relevant design spaces that are mentioned rarely, if at all, in current practice. Part of the paper\u27s contribution is in making those ideas more explicit through framing the discussion around aspects of WST. Another part of its contribution is in providing a new way to discuss topics such as workarounds, add-ins, and exceptions that are sometimes controversial issues when ERP is used

Knowledge Acquisition Through Case Study Development: A Student Researcher Perspective

Educators are increasingly incorporating the development of research case studies as a course assignment in graduate and executive degree courses. Each student (or student group) develops a research case study that provides theory-based explanation and discussion of how a real organization managed a business issue related to the course. In the process, the student gains a deeper understanding of business theories and their applications as well as current business issues and their interactions with internal and external organizational forces. While a significant amount of literature is written on developing case studies for full-time academic researchers, little is done to provide guidelines to student researchers, who face unique issues and constraints in this research-based learning process. This paper introduces case study research method and offers a roadmap to student researchers

Enterprise Resource Planning Systems Research: An Annotated Bibliography

Despite growing interest, publications on ERP systems within the academic Information Systems community, as reflected by contributions to journals and international conferences, is only now emerging. This article provides an annotated bibliography of the ERP publications published in the main Information Systems journals and conferences and reviews the state of the ERP art. The publications surveyed are categorized through a framework that is structured in phases that correspond to the different stages of an ERP system lifecycle within an organization. We also present topics for further research in each phase

The social shaping of packaged software selection

As organisations increasingly engage in the selection, purchase, and adoption of packaged software products, howthese activities are carried out in practice becomes increasingly relevant for researchers and practitioners. Ourfocus in this paper is to propose a framework for understanding the packaged software selection process. Thefunctionalist literature on this area of study suggests a number of generic recommendations, which are based onrational assumptions about the process and view the decision making that takes place as producing the “besttechnology solution.’” To explore this, we conducted a longitudinal, in-depth study of packaged software selectionin a small organisation. For interpretation of the case, we draw upon the Social Construction of Technology, atheoretical framework arguing that technology is socially constituted and regarding the process of development ascontradictory and uncertain. We offer a number of contributions. First, we further our understanding of packagedsoftware selection with the critique that we offer of the functionalist literature, drawing insights from the emergingcritical/constructivist literature and expanding our domain of interest to encompass the wider environment. Second,we weave this together with our experiences in the field, drawing on social constructivism for theoretical support, todevelop a framework of packaged software selection that shows how various actors shape the process