Project - MRP to ERP Upgrade Project

To help save costs during a time of fiscal impediment, the company decided to hold off on the upgrading of an obsolete MRP system on an obsolete server for four years. Support was difficult to source during this period as the MRP provider would no longer officially offer any support.

Goals:

• Delay upgrade costs until company returned to profitability
• Ensure the later successful MRP to ERP upgrade while keeping costs to a minimum and taking advantage of any new capabilities
  

During this time the MRP database files grew too large for the Unix Operating System to handle, causing the MRP to become unavailable. I worked with a contractor to update the Unix COBOL application run time, which enabled the operating system to store larger files. This worked, but left the server in a slightly crippled state, as we were unable to run some of the commands properly and had to manage the server using a restricted command set. We were, however, able to stall the upgrade for four years.

When fiscal means allowed, within a three week period, I worked with the Network Administrator to upgrade the MRP System to an ERP System. Of course, we reviewed any new functionality and worked with the department managers to align the daily processing procedures with the new system. This re-alignment helped ensure maximum benefits were yielded from the upgrade from both data visibility and process flow perspectives. Each department was assigned a “Power User”, helping us field support questions during and after "Go Live".

As we were confident that the upgrade was sufficiently staged and the technology was working properly, we used the Big-Bang switch over method, with zero data loss and insignificant downtime.