re: Baan August 26, 1997
Boeing To Drop Baan's Software
(08/25/97; 3:00 p.m. EDT)
By Tom Stein, InformationWeek
Boeing is dropping Baan's enterprise resource planning software from its
Corinth, Texas, operations. The decision, according to sources, is
cost-related, though it may have more to do with Boeing's acquisition of
McDonnell Douglas.
Baan confirmed last week that a scheduled 18-month pilot at the Corinth site,
which makes parts for military applications, was scrapped after a month.
Sources close to the situation say Boeing wasn't prepared to swallow the
cost of completing the Baan installation -- estimated to be as high as $20
million. Another factor, according to the sources, was overruns with an
earlier Baan implementation at Boeing's Irving, Texas, site. That
implementation was supposed to cost $4.1 million and take about seven
months. Instead, the sources say, it cost more than three times that amount
and took three times as long to complete.
A Boeing representative says the Irving site does have Baan in production
and that the Corinth decision was unrelated. The representative says Boeing
ended the Corinth project because it's re-evaluating the best way to do
business in the wake of its merger with McDonnell Douglas -- a major
customer of Western Data Systems, a vendor of ERP software for the
aerospace and defense industry.
Boeing has chosen the Calabasas, Calif., vendor for its Australian operations.
Allan Wilson, senior VP of sales and marketing at Western Data, says the
vendor is close to landing the Corinth deal. While Western Data claims that
its software is better than Baan's for military-contract applications, a Baan
representative insists the Corinth decision will not affect the rollout of Baan
software at other Boeing sites.
Neither company would comment on how many Boeing sites use or plan to
use Baan software. Still, Boeing isn't the only aerospace and defense
company that has issues with Baan. Transfield Defense Systems, a defense
contractor in Sydney, Australia, says it's a year behind schedule with its Baan
implementation because the software's aerospace and defense functionality
wasn't ready. |
