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HomeMy WebLinkAboutStaff Report 9826 City of Palo Alto (ID # 9826) City Council Staff Report Report Type: Informational Report Meeting Date: 4/1/2019 City of Palo Alto Page 1 Summary Title: Enterprise Resource Planning System Status Title: Review Enterprise Resource Planning System Status From: City Manager Lead Department: IT Department Executive Summary The City recently engaged in a comprehensive request for proposal (RFP) process for a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software system, to identify key strategic partners and evaluate potential solutions to replace our existing ERP system, which supports core financial and human resource management functions citywide. Th e RFP was issued in Aug 2017 and the City received 13 proposals. Through a rigorous committee evaluation process during 2018, three proposals were shortlisted to progress to the final round. After thorough consideration, it was determined that an upgrade to our current SAP environment would be more appropriate than a complete system replacement at this time. The RFP was therefore cancelled on November 14th, 2018 and the vendors were notified of the cancellation. An upgrade to the current SAP system will avoid the risks, costs, and management challenges associated with migration to a new ERP during a time of considerable related operational and management changes, including but not limited to leadership transitions in the Administrative Services, Utilities, and Information Technology departments. This upgrade will enhance our current SAP environment by introducing an intuitive and user-friendly interface that will support mobile devices and enable currently underutilized features to maximize productivity. In effect, the upgrade now proposed to our ERP environment will ensure the City enjoys a fully functional ERP system that meets all our identified needs at a lower cost and level of effort than that required by a transition to an entirely new system, which would have provided inconsequential added features at a significant cost. Background The City currently utilizes the SAP ERP system to support its major financial and human resource management functions and utility billing processes. The City’s history wit h SAP began in 2002, when the City selected SAP as its preferred vendor for an ERP system with the purpose of integrating various business processes within the City and to pave the path for the City to move in the direction of electronic government. In fiscal year 2003, the implementation of the SAP Enterprise Central Component (ECC 6.0) and SAP core modules were completed, and the City of Palo Alto Page 2 SAP system has been running in the City since 2003. The ERP system supports Accounting, Finance, Purchasing, Project Management, Plant Maintenance, Budget Controls, Payroll, Human Resource Management, and Service Order Management. In 2009, the City completed a major upgrade to the SAP ERP system, which also replaced the former utility billing system (Banner) with the implementation of the SAP IS-U module, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Utilities Customer Electronic Services (also known as My Utilities Account customer portal) and Business Intelligence systems (BI) for the Utilities department. Both business and technology needs evolved since the current ERP solution was selected and implemented, and the current system has reached end of life support. We recognized that these factors require us to either upgrade our current environment or move to a new supported environment. Therefore, the City engaged Plante Moran in 2014 to perform a comprehensive assessment of the City’s SAP ERP environment and identify key strategic options and recommendations. This engagement not only reviewed the core SAP functions but also included the identification and review of major best-of-breed and third-party systems used by the City. Ultimately, this report outlined three paths forward for the City to consider: 1. Status quo with investment 2. Upgrade SAP 3. New ERP Environment The full ERP System Evaluation Report from 2014, including recommendations for issuance and consideration of an RFP, can be found here: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/civicax/filebank/documents/48789 . Discussion Selection and implementation of an ERP system is one of the largest and most complex projects a City can undertake. In August 17, 2017, an RFP for the Finance and Human Resources ERP System was issued. (A separate process for evaluating support for Utility Billing and Customer Service, which was also incorporated into this process, is addressed briefly at the end of this memo). An evaluation team of staff from the Information Technology, Administrative Services, Utilities, Police and Public Works departments spend a year evaluating the proposals from thirteen vendors who responded to the RFP. City staff completed a robust evaluation process, helping to ensure that the best decision for the city has been made and that the future ERP roadmap will be successfully implemented. The RFP evaluation committee used six criteria to evaluate the proposals: Functional Fit, Implementation Methodology, Compliance with Technical Requirements, Support and Maintenance, Strategic Fit and Total Cost of Ownership. Below is a summary of the ERP RFP evaluation results and process. Financial Summary of the Proposals (as identified by each vendor*): • One-time implementation costs ranged from $3 million to $6.7 million • Annual maintenance costs ranged from $800,000 to $900,000 City of Palo Alto Page 3 • 10-year cumulative costs ranged from $12.5 million to $16.5 million * These cost estimates do not include an evaluation of City staffing costs for backfill or ongoing support resource requirements. Summary of ERP Evaluation Effort: Ultimately, the evaluation team short-listed three vendors who represented some of the leading ERP solutions and invited them to provide demonstrations of their systems. Multiple demonstrations spread across four days per vendor, over five hundred individual staff hours were invested in evaluating proposals, twelve reference calls and two site visits were completed to assist in the evaluation of each vender across the six criteria. One major note identified by the evaluation team was that the cost of new implementation would be significantly higher than proposed by the vendors with the additional cost of hiring temporary staff required to backfill positions, train users and develop new interfaces. Staff estimated that a new ERP implementation would take over three years to configure and implement citywide. After considering all the feedback from the ERP evaluation team on the shortlisted proposals, the priorities of the organization, and current resources limitations, staff determined the best course of action would be to pursue the second option from the 2014 Plante Moran report: an upgrade to the current SAP environment. The upgrade cost of the current SAP environment is estimated at $4 million which includes financial/human resources system software and services, hardware, project staffing and other costs. The scope of this upgrade includes moving from the current SAP ECC 6.0 Enhancement package (EHP) 2.0 to SAP ECC 6.0 EHP 8.0. The recurring annual SAP licensing cost for EHP 8.0 is estimated at $350,000. When compared to a new ERP, the annual licensing cost is approximately $550,000 less annually. Considering the cost benefit of an upgrade option, the staff further focused on how the upgrade path addresses the challenges encountered in our current environment and meeting all the requirements identified during the ERP planning phase. The team also revisited the findings from the RFP evaluation phase which further supported the decision of upgrading SAP over new ERP implementation. New ERP Vs. Proposed SAP ERP (Upgrade) Cost Comparison: ERP Options One-time Implementation Cost Annual/Recurring Licensing Cost Implementation Timeline New ERP ~ $6M ~ $900K ~ 36 months Proposed SAP Upgrade to EHP 8.0 ~ $4M ~ $350K ~ 24 months Below are some of the benefits of the SAP Upgrade option: City of Palo Alto Page 4 Increase user friendliness and intuitiveness of system • In the current landscape, navigation is complex and cumbersome. End users must memorize transaction codes and there is no web -based graphical interface. The upgraded environment will utilities SAP’s latest and most innovative user interface applications to enable web/mobile interface and intuitive access to everyday tasks of reporting, approvals, time entry and many additional tasks. • SAP’s upgraded environment will support single sign-on functionality, which will enhance user experience to connect to various SAP applications seamlessly using one login credential. End users will never have to remember their SAP user-id/password in the new upgraded SAP environment, and associated helpdesk calls for password resets will be avoided. Facilitate further automation of business processes • The upgraded environment will enhance ERP workflow approval capabilities by providing more flexibility in configuring various processes and approval cycles. Improve quality and reliability of information for decision making • Utilizing available SAP Data Migration Tools as part of the SAP upgrade activity, we will be able to convert and cleanse legacy ERP data and address data quality issues. A newly cleansed data set will form the basis for reliable information. Ineffective reporting capabilities • In the current environment, the processing time of report generation can be time consuming. The upgraded ERP environment will offer better organized data and new apps to provide one-click navigation access to frequently used reports customized to each user. Improve System Flexibility • The upgraded SAP application will offer improved integration tools to stabilize current integration points with various third-party solutions. This feature can also enable easier future integrations and provide additional flexibility in deploying newer solutions. In addition to the benefits mentioned above, Staff recognizes the carry forward of organizational knowledge of current SAP users. This will lead to a significant reduction of effort involved in user training and an easier adoption of the upgraded environment. The city will be able to benefit from a more user-friendly interface, mobile friendly workflows and timesheets, faster and easier access to necessary operational reports enabling data driven decisions. We can anticipate tight integration with key external solutions such as GIS (Geographic Information System) Spatial Mapping solution, Smart Water Metering Technologies, and SAP business intelligence and reporting solution. While it is expected that all major financial and human resource functions will be maintained within this upgraded SAP, many business processes will see improvements or changes to increase efficiency and improved controls. In order to take advantage of all these new features of an upgraded SAP application, the City City of Palo Alto Page 5 will need the expertise of a third-party consulting firm to implement the upgraded SAP environment on a supported hardware and database platform. As part of the SAP upgrade project, staff will return to Council to seek approval for purchase of required software, hardware and professional services. Impact on CIS Implementation: Apart from this analysis of the core Finance and Human Resource functions of the ERP system, the Utilities Department is working through the evaluation of a separate RFP process for a Utilities Billing and Customer Information System (CIS), and currently is in the final stages of decision making. Depending on the outcome of this evaluation, the original planned timeline and sequence in which the ERP and CIS systems were to be implemented or upgraded may be impacted. One scenario is the CIS project may be delayed allowing for the ERP to be upgraded and stabilized, after which the integration with and deployment of a new CIS could commence. The advantage of the proper sequencing of the ERP and CIS implementations is that staff can reduce integration efforts to one single time, rather than integration of CIS with our cu rrent SAP environment and a second integration after the SAP environment has been upgraded. In addition, the Utilities Department recently developed a five -year strategic technology roadmap including replacement of the ERP and CIS systems and deployment of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI)-base smart grid system. All these projects require significant planning, financial and staffing resources and system integration. Depending on the completion of the CIS implementation for integration purposes, the AMI project schedule could potentially be impacted as well as other technology projects on the Utilities Technology Roadmap. Staff will return to Council with an update regarding the CIS Evaluation once the analysis is completed. Resource Impact Upgrading the SAP environment is expected to cost approximately $4 million in one -time expenses and $350,000 ongoing. These costs will be funded out of the Information Technology Fund with existing funds both for the implementation costs as well as the ongoing license costs.