Atos Origin
[Atos Origin] was formed in October 2000 following a merger between the French company Atos and Origin B.V. from the Netherlands. Prior to that, both companies were the creation of other smaller mergers and acquisitions starting from around 1976. In 1996, Origin B.V. was created after a merger of the Dutch company BSO and the Philips C&P (Communications & Processing) division, while a year later in 1997, Atos was created following a merger of the French companies Axime and Sligos.
Philips Components
In 1997 I transferred from Sinagpore to the Origin Consultancy practice in North America. The first project undertaken in the US was for Philips Components in Santa Clara CA and El Paso TX. The objective of the Project was to implement Baan in the El Paso Warehouses and at the Finance and Administration center in Santa Clara. Being a large distribution center the key success factors were interfacing Baan successfully with a bar-code scanning system and ensure rapid put away and retrival of products using Cross-Docking, Golden Zone location control and Wave building warehouse management techniques. A secondary success factor was implementing Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and GL and interfacing it with Philips general accounting system hosted by SAP. The project was completed in eight months.
Implementation Summary
- Role: Project Manager
- Consultants Directly Supervised: 5
- Project Budget: Approximately US3million
- Project Length: 8 Months
Neways, Provo Utah 1998-1999
Established in 1992 in Salem, Utah, Neways creates, manufactures, and distributes an extensive line of personal care products, nutritional supplements, and household products. Similar to its more famous counterparts like Avon and Amway, its products are sold through distributors.
When I led a Baan ERP implemetation during the fall of 1998, Neways was going through a very rapid period of growth. It was a family owned business generating a lot of cash and profits through its distribution channels that had reached many countries. Whereas money to spent on IT projects was plentiful, Neways was still lacking many of the usual business and manufacturing practices. Our main objective in the first phase was implement the basic Baan modules and manage and reduce the high level of raw material and finished goods inventory in the warehouse. We also implemented the basic AR, AP and GL modules. For this project I pulled together a team of five full time consultants including myself and brought other consultants in to work on ad-hoc project tasks as needed.
By April 2009 the first phase was completed as scheduled and we began work on phase 2, which was to roll out the project to its Wellington, New Zealand facility and interface Baan with a bespoke credit card sales program written by a third party programmer. The second phase was less successful insofar as that although we were able to implement the Baan sales module features successfully, the third-party credit card application was designed with too many flaws and eventually abandoned by Neways.
Project Summary
Role: Project Manager Consultants Directly Supervised: 8 including part-time consultants Project Budget:US$4million Length of Project:11 months
