Electromechanical supplier finds no price can be put on controlling risk
By Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 11/1/2005 7:00:00 AM
Curtiss-Wright,Cheswick, Pa., had encountered a problem common to any company that relies on multiple types of software to run a business: deploying the required software changes and patches in an organized manner.
"We had various change-management systems—including an Access database to log change requests, a third-party patching tool, and a manual process we used to move application customizations into production," recalls Cary Pochek, lead for the OracleE-Business Suite applications projects at Curtiss-Wright.
The stakes were high. Formerly known as the Westinghouse Government Services Co., Curtiss-Wright supplies mission-critical electromechanical products to high-profile customers, including motors, generators, and secondary propulsors for the U.S. Navy. The nuclear industry—another major customer—relies on Curtiss-Wright for reactor coolant pumps, seals, motors, and control-rod drive mechanisms.
In short, while the system changes in question were not especially numerous—between 10 and 15 a month, says Pochek—it was important they be administered properly.
"We've done a lot of custom reports and custom code to cover situations where the standard reports did not provide all the information users need," Pochek explains. "We're typically making changes to our existing customizations, and making them concurrently with other changes."
Yet it was Sarbanes-Oxley compliance obligations that provided the financial justification for adopting a change-management solution—Quest Software's Stat ACM for the Oracle E-Business Suite. Having been a user of another Quest application—Toad, a database development and administration tool—Curtiss-Wright quickly decided that Stat ACM was a good fit.
"When implementing a new solution, you don't want to change the process to match your software, or change your software to match the process," says Tim Guido, database administrator, Curtiss-Wright. "Additionally, the tool's version-control capabilities reduce the risk of human error related to moving code into production. We would know with certainty that what was tested was going into production."
Pochek says that once evaluated, implementation of Stat ACM moved quickly, and Curtiss-Wright began using it in earnest in the second quarter of this year.
"We didn't do a formal cost justification before acquiring it, and we haven't done one subsequently," claims Pochek. "It's difficult to precisely quantify improved efficiencies and processes. But the improved risk control is very real—and you can't really put a price on Sarbanes-Oxley compliance."
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