Abu Dhabi Education Council: Enterprise Resource Planning - Case Study Example

ADEC ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING ADEC Enterprise Resource Planning Customer Name: Lecturer Name: Date: Introduction Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) is an academic institution founded on the principle that education is a fundamental pillar of a nation’s economic and social development. The organization has embraced technology in their operations for several years. However, it is of paramount importance that entire operations of the organization to be integrated. This called for need of implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). ERP is conventionally defined as computer-based system used to manage internal and external resources including tangible assets, financial resources, materials, and human resources of the organization as a whole. The implementation of ERP in ADEC has been phased with the first phase involving the completion of ADEC’s Enterprise Resource Planning system operation for Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC) headquarters, teachers, and administrative staff. The Enterprise Resource Planning system is intentioned to effectively integrate diverse systems such as Human Resource, procurement and finance, within the organization. The advantages of the new ERP system includes enhanced exchange of data and information. ERP was implemented in four institutions in Abu Dhabi: Paris-Sorbonne University Abu Dhabi (PSUAD), Emirates College for Advanced Education (ECAE), Abu Dhabi Vocational and Training Institute, and University of Mohammad 5 -Abu Dhabi (UM5A). The current ERP system at Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC)  The driving force behind the current ERP system at Abu Dhabi Education Council is the objective of creating a technological infrastructure to simplify work flow, support decision making, progress access to correct data, and develop education strategy. The current Enterprise Resource Planning operates through a centralized system of financial and administrative solutions founded on a unified data centre to serve all of ADEC’s systems, this ERP was implemented in phases with the first phase completed in the year 2009 concerned with financial and procurement systems, the second phase was concerned with payroll and self-service systems, where the salaries of Abu Dhabi Administrative and teaching personnel were relocated from the Ministry of Education's payroll to Abu Dhabi Education Council’s payroll. The system current system addresses human resource considerations in that all the officers under ADEC such as teachers can follow up on any Human Resource service such as related certificates applying for leaves, work, and recommendation letters or any related information update, at the convenience of their schools or offices using the internet anywhere and anytime. This reduces the need for a teacher to be physically present at ADEC offices in order to be served. Furthermore, the ADEC ERP implementation enhances knowledge transfer to all the organizations staff, while enabling the transformation due to the deployment of best practices. The current system also integrates web portal founded on MS SharePoint 2007 technology. This offers huge potential to store data, information and documents, the portal also offers data privacy and information security while supporting business and users by offering services intended to enhance efficiency in place of work. Furthermore, SharePoint 2007 has the merit of offering a unified distinct platform for managing all types of communication within the organization, and as such, this offers centralized decision support, furthermore the system offers storage of local copy, enhanced searches, task synchronizations, capability to support Wikis and blogs and access to mobile device, this enables the business to pursue strategic goals based on data from diverse sources, which are centralized to arrive at the best decision. The current system has several critical success factors addressed during system implementation, there were strategic and tactical critical success factors, strategic factors included Legacy systems, ADEC Vision, ERP strategy, management support and project schedule and plans. Tactical factors included personnel, monitoring and feedback, and communication. An important critical factor was the legacy systems, this encapsulate the existing business processes at ADEC, organization structure, culture, and information and communication technology infrastructure. The existing systems at ADEC, before the implementation of the ERP was made up of unconnected stand alone computers, this was instrumental in determining the amount of organizational change needed to effectively execute an ERP system, the current systems also dictate the initial point for ERP implementation, legacy systems evaluation is imperative in defining the nature and scale of challenges likely to be faced, hence impacting on the choice of ERP strategy, by ADEC. The legacy systems were therefore a critical success factor consideration. ERP strategy was also a Critical Success factor, in that ADEC’s need for change affected the ERP strategy choice. The strategy implemented at ADEC was a phased implementation strategy, were the entire functionalities of the ERP were defined but individual modules and components were implemented in stages, beginning from critical offices, then gradually adding extra functionality as the users became familiar with the system, this offered the merits of speedy implementation as well as simplicity. There were also tactical critical success factors. One of the key factors that determined the success of an ERP at ADEC was the project management. This is the application of the skills and knowledge so that the coordination of the schedules and activity monitoring is achieved. The plan for project management involved the definition of the activities that will be performed, assigning of personnel to those activities, and promoting the acceptability of the process in the system. The project management team at ADEC is instrumental in ensuring that every module was completed on time, and that the module could perform its operations as aimed. Business process reengineering is also a Critical success factor. This is the redesigning of the business processes so that there is improvement in the critical and contemporary measures in performance and also reduction in cost, quality and service. In this case ADEC had to change it’s way of operations to suit the ERP software so that customization is minimized. Since one of the main reasons for the implementation of the ERP system is to have a better business process in the company, there is therefore need to have a critical look at the way these two can be integrated for the improvement of the systems in the organization. User training and education is also a critical success factor, this is to ensure that so there is an understanding of what the ERP will do at ADEC. All the ADEC employees and stakeholders were made aware of the system and the benefits of the system. User training and education is important so as to increase the comfort of the use of the software in the workplace. This also includes change management, where the employees and the management should be trained for the change that will be accepted in the company. The right technical structures were also a critical success factor in ensuring the success of the ERP system implementation. This is crucial due to the fact that the legacy IT infrastructure will have to be improved in order to accommodate the ERP system. There will be a need to having a new infrastructure in place. For the ERP to be successful, the right hardware and software should be installed in place. Functional areas covered by ERP at ADEC The ERP as ADEC covers diverse functional areas such as communication and collaboration enhancement between ADEC and its employees, integration and control of human resources such as Human Resource self service and payroll system, and financial procurements functions. The ERP at ADEC covers diverse functional areas with organizational contribution being an important area considered. The ERP contributes to integration of organizations operations since all systems utilize a centralized database and reduce data redundancy. Cost reduction due to fewer staff to do the same work, furthermore, contributes to ease management of organizations resources such as human resource, monetary resource and assets. Furthermore, the ERP improves the organizations service delivery, since teachers and staff at ADEC can be offered the Human Resource services at the convenience of their offices, without travelling to the headquarters. The Enterprise Resource Planning at ADEC is envisioned to provide a centralized system of administrative and financial solutions founded on a unified data center, which serves all of ADEC's systems. There ERP was initially implemented in four educational institutions. The ERP is envisioned to emphasize knowledge transfer to all Abu Dhabi Education Council employees, support and enable the transformation through the deployment of best practices and integrated business processes followed by major institutions worldwide. Phases of ERP implementation at Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC)  The ERP was implemented in phases, while conforming to the project development stages. In the first stage of the ERP implementation was completed in the year 2009, and involved the financial and procurement systems, the second stage of the ERP implementation focused on payroll and self-service systems, the implementation of this phase had several impacts on the operation of ADEC as well as the Ministry of Education, one such pointer is the transfer of salaries of Abu Dhabi Administrative and teaching officers, from the Ministry of Education’s payroll to ADEC’s payroll. This phase included the migration of information and data of all the concerned teaching and administrative staff. Whereas there existed several challenges such as the fact that ADEC’s business operations had to be altered to suit the ERP, this challenge was overcame by Business Process Re-Engineering. ERP projects have similarities that can be formalized into a structural process, which ensures that projects effectively and that achievement of objectives can be measured at every stage. The ERP project implementation at Abu Dhabi Education Council was divided into six stages: which are problem Definition, project Initiation, and project Planning, Execution, Monitoring & Control and finally project Closure, Each phase in the ADEC ERP implementation was further broken down into a number of elements to reduce the complexity of the project. Each stage concerned unique attributes and activities that enhance the project from commencement to the end; each stage plays a crucial role in the success of the entire project. The ERP project definition stage which involves the characterization of the project goals aims and objectives, scope, risks involved issues that may arise, budget and financial requirements, timeline as well as the approach that was adopted by ADEC. This was the first stage before the commencement of the project and the requirements and specifications agreed on during project definition are communicated to all the concerned stakeholders. The second important stage was the initiation stage, in this stage, the terms of reference within which the project shall operate was set, this was important in order to ensure that the project succeeds and that possible sources of failure are identified and dealt with before they mature to threats. In addition, during the initiation stage, the expectations of the stakeholders were set, the business case stated and the boundaries of project defined. If this is not done well, the project will have a high likelihood of failure. ADEC management understood that failure to properly deal with the initiation stage is a recipe for project failure. Abu Dhabi Education Council ERP implementation also involved the Planning stage in project development. This stage is very important to the overall success of the project. In several project implementations, the project team prefer setting down to project executions and do not take into account the project planning. Successful planning of the project is paramount to the execution stage, which involves the actual delivery of the expected result, ADEC ERP implementation utilised the Dynamic Systems Development Model in its ERP implementation. The Dynamic Systems Development Model (DSDM) is an exploratory agile software development technique that is based on the philosophy that nothing is built flawlessly the first time; it is a descendant of the rapid application development (RAD) practices. Dynamic Systems Development Model has nine underlying principles, which includes users involvement to foster accurate decision making, empowered teams to make essential decisions without delays consulting authorities, focus on frequent delivery of products, which allows timely tests and review, the suitability to the business purpose is the fundamental decisive factor for acceptance of deliverables. Other principles are iterative and incremental development to ensure convergence on an accurate business solution, flexibility to allow changes made during the development to be reversible, requirements and scope are baseline before the projects starts, incorporated testing during the life cycle and finally Collaboration and cooperation between all stakeholders. ADEC Enterprise Resource Planning and Business Process Re-engineering In implementing the Enterprise Resource Planning, ADEC utilized Business Process Re-engineering. The underlying reason why ADEC used BPR is due to its several advantages over other methodologies, Sheilds, (96). The Business Process Re-engineering was implemented in a seven phase process which involved beginning organizational change, building the Reengineering Organization, identification of Business Process Re-engineering opportunities, Understanding the Existing Process, reengineering the Process, Blueprinting the New Business System and Performing the Transformation. In the first phase of beginning organizational transformation, ADEC had to do several activities, this included assessing the current state of the organization, presenting and explaining to all stakeholders the desired state, and the need for change as well as creating a communications promotion for acceptance of change. The second phase of the BPR at ADEC involved creating the Reengineering Organization. In this instance ADEC established the infrastructure to promote reengineering efforts, this included creating a BPR organizational structure, sourcing and employing personnel to implement reengineering and establish the responsibilities for performing BPR . This was followed by Identification BPR Opportunities where ADEC was divided into high-level processes, such that the ERP could be implemented in phases. In this phase, ADEC Identified the core/high-level processes, selected processes that should be reengineered, and prioritize chosen processes which demanded quick re-engineering, the phase also involved devising new process performance objectives and recognizing possible obstructions to ERP implementation. In the fourth phase, Business Process Re-engineering involved recognizing and analyzing the existing process, comparing current process with the innovative objectives, and recognizing the existing organizational structure. This was followed by Reengineering the ERP Process, which concentrated on utilizing the BPR principles. Blueprinting the new ERP system was the next phase where ADEC defining new operating environments such as new flow of information and workflow. The last phase was performing the transforming to the new ERP system which engaged creating a migration action plan and develops a migration strategy. The Business Process RE-engineering at ADEC was in conformity with DSDM. There are Core Techniques of DSDM, this includes Timeboxing which involves splitting up the project into portions, each portion is then allocated a predetermined budget and expected date of delivery, this technique offers several advantages to DSDM over traditional methods since details and features are predetermined, hence reducing the need for unforeseen alterations, Castells, (300). DSDM also utilises MoSCoW techniques which represents a method of priority allocation to items. This presents a merit to DSDM over other methodologies such as the project tem being able to prioritize on critical tasks n the project. Prototyping which is creation of simplified implementations of the system being developed, this has the merit of ensuring that all the concerned project team members are involved and creates a sense of ownership of the final product. DSDM also advocates for workshops which ensures that all the stakeholders come together to present their opinions. Another crucial success factor of DSDM is testing. This is whereby; the project is tested at each stage, to ensure that the quality requirements are met. Over other methodologies, DSDM also utilises configuration management where all modules that make up a project are controlled in order to achieve cohesion. Finally DSDM offers modelling which gives a diagrammatic representation of the features in a system, this ensures that the development team and the stakeholders have a clear view of the system being developed, these advantages enabled the ERP implementation at ADEC to be efficiently and effectively phased. After effectively implementing the ERP at ADEC, the last stage was the post-implementation which engaged Monitoring & Control stage, this is geared towards ensuring that the project benefits are attained, however the ERP project at ADEC is continuous and no closing of the project has currently been done, since more functionalities and modules are being added to the ERP. Conclusion ADEC has been dynamic in the implementation of new technological innovation. The implementation of an ERP was instrumental in achieving several benefits at ADEC. This included reduction of operation costs, enhancing human resource management, promoting staff collaboration and communication and simplifying and speeding operations and core functions at ADEC. The ERP implementation involved several stages and Business Process Reengineering was very vital in the achievement of the ERP implementation. Works cited Castells, M, The galaxy of the internet: reflections on the Internet, business, and ERP systems, London : Oxford University Press. Sheilds, Mureell, E-Business and ERP: Rapid Implementation and Project Planning, New York : John Wiley and Sons. Read More