Update: Failed ERP gamble haunts Hershey
[ We'll see more such stories in 1Q 2000, the question is how many? Will there be a significant enough number to cause a recession? ]
computerworld.com
(Online News, 10/29/99 04:52 PM)
Update: Failed ERP gamble haunts Hershey
By Craig Stedman
A$112 million ERP project has blown up in the face of Hershey
Foods Corp., which said Tuesday it's still struggling to fix
order-processing problems that are hampering its ability to ship
candy and other products to retailers.
Analysts and industry sources said the Hershey, Pa., manufacturer
appears to have lost a gamble that it could install a wide swath of
SAPAG's R/3 enterprise resource planning applications, plus
companion packages from two other vendors, in a single rollout
during one of its busiest shipping seasons.
[ The bolded section sounds virtually identical to what other companies are doing for Y2K ]
The sources said Hershey squeezed what was originally expected to
be a four-year project into just 30 months before going live with the
ERPsystem in July, which is when retailers begin ordering big
amounts of candy for back-to-school and Halloween sales.
[...]
"People hate the idea of a phased deployment," Shepherd said. "But
these systems tie together in very intricate ways, and things that
work fine in testing can turn out to be a disaster [when you go live]."
At Hershey, the system problems will likely result in lost market
share and could lead fed-up retailers to drop some of the company's
products from their shelves, Wolfe said.
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