IBM Power i to ERP

This manufacturer, distributor, and service provider of industrial pipe solutions had a low-cost, reliable IBM Power i-based system that met most of their business needs for over 30 years. However, their growth, coupled with increasing industry demands, outpaced its functionality. Very few applications, especially those in manufacturing, incorporated industry best practices. Even the most basic implementations of routings, product structures, shop orders, and capacity planning were not formally incorporated into the existing system. Rather than reengineering the existing system or integrating several disparate systems together, management elected to purchase an ERP.

At first, this seemed like a simpler conversion. The bills of material for coated steel pipe are completely vertical and only two or three levels deep. However, most applications require lot-batch tracking of steel, based on the foundry batch where it originated. PVC pipe manufacturing utilized a continuous flow layout that ran 24 hours a day. The nuclear pipe applications were engineer-to-order job shops that required stringent quality standards and documentation.  Custom fabrications, rental tracking, warehousing, and services further complicated the business requirements. The company was able to find the Swiss Army knife ERP that they needed, Sweden-based IFS.

I was the sole technical resource on the source system. My job was to translate the database relationships within the source and target systems into an application that efficiently migrated the data. It also documented instances where system constraints were violated so alternative approaches could be explored. This was a highly iterative process that required the migration system to be very conducive to change.  So, how did the project turn out? Here are the metrics that project managers care about:

• Out of 50M records, less than 60 manual entries were required at go-live
• An inventory variance of less than $2,200 for over $250M in book value
• Accounts receivables were balanced perfectly
• Go-live implementation was completed in under 12 hours