HomeMy WebLinkAbout2002-12-03 City Council (2)City Manager’s Report
TO:HONORABLE CITY COUNCIL
ATTENTION: FINANCE COMMITTEE
FROM:CITY MANAGER DEPARTMENT: ADMINISTRATIVE
SERVICES
DATE:
SUBJECT:
DECEMBER 3, 2002 CMR: 453:02
QUARTERLY UPDATE ON THE ENTERPRISE RESOURCE
PLANNING (ERP)SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION -
RESOURCE AND FINANCIAL TRACKING SYSTEM
(RAFTS)
This is an informational report and no Council action is required.
BACKGROUND
On July 22, 2002, Council directed staff to proceed with the purchase of a software
license and services agreement with SAP, Inc; a professional services agreement with ea
Consulting, Inc., to conduct the software implementation; and an agreement with the
Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) to assist with the implementation
oversight for the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system. Council requested staff
provide quarterly reports on the status of the project. This is the second quarterly report
produced and contains an update on work completed since the middle of September 2002.
DISCUSSION
The Project Resource and Financial Tracking System (RAFTS) will be implemented over
two phases in an 18-month period. Phase I will include the financial, project
management, procurement and inventory management and work order functions, and will
go live in July 2003. Phase II includes payroll and human resources, and will go live
January 2004. This status report focuses on Phase I implementations.
Since the last report to the Finance Committee, staff identified project RAFTS team
members for each of the functional teams and started the "blue-print" process. The blue
print stage is an important step in the imPlementation since team members must gather
business process requirements for each area required for system configuration. This
process is time consuming since team members must conduct requirements-gathering
meetings with users of each department. Team members are reviewing best business
practices for use of the SAP system by attending SAP courses, and exploring
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opportunities to reengineer business processes. The GFOA staff is also providing
technical expertise and best business practices advice at each step of the implementation.
Members of the teams are working concurrently, managed by project leads consisting~of
City and ea Consulting staff.
In addition to the other module teams, technical and change management teams were
created to obtain knowledge of the system, assist in project awareness, .encourage
business reengineering where applicable and set up user training plans. In partnership
with ea Consulting, a RAFTS team training plan was developed and commenced at SAP
to familiarize the team with system functionality. A total of 41 employees attended SAP
training on the various functions of Phase I. Team members have attended numerous
training meetings with ea Consulting and started system integration meetings among the
different modules. The project is progressing on schedule and on budget. Other major
accomplishments for the period are:
Eight week rolling calendars were established and are maintained by all team
members to track and plan project meetings and non-project work
The Change Management Team established and implemented an employee
communications plan that includes an internal newsletters, "sound bites" and
an intranet websites to update employees on the project status
Discussions commenced with GFOA on establishing project performance
indicators to provide comparisons between current and new processes
Weekly project status meetings are held with all project team leads to update
the team and share progress reports
Project management reporting processes are in place, with monthly reports to
the upper management project steering committee
A project issue management process was established and centralized to record,
analyze, track and report on action taken.
Hardware installation,, configuration and SAP software installation was
completed in anticipation of the system configuration starting in December
Project awareness and orientations were held with Utilities and Public Works
managers
A project plan and charter have been completed and are being used as
guidelines by the project teams
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Staff created a RAFTS Phase I progress chart (Attachment A) that provides a visual
status on the progress based on the steps necessary to complete the implementation and to
go live on July 1, 2003. The shaded area marked "progress" represents the completed
tasks, which currently ends before the blue print. After the module blue prints are
completed, configuration of the system (development of reports and form specifications)
commences in December.Staff will update the progress chart and include it in future
reports.
RESOURCE IMPACT
This report is for information purposes only and does not have a financial impact.
ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT
Approval of this agreement does not constitute a project under the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA); therefore, no environmental assessment is required.
ATTACHMENTS
Attachment 1:
PREPARED BY:
DEPARTMENTAL HEAD APPROVAL:
Phase I progress chart __~f.~
ALo PZ( z
RA SoSl tiltNl31~~~
Manager, Information Technology
Director, j~Oministrative Services
CITY MANAGER APPROVAL:
EMILY
Assistant City Manager
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