De-emphasizing ERP, Emerson and Lockheed don't ignore integration needs
Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 12/1/2003 7:00:00 AM
Global manufacturers that believed even a few years ago that a sound enterprise strategy meant commitment to a single ERP suite now say integration technology will allow use of multiple ERP systems for the foreseeable future, without penalty.
But these same companies see no less business reasons for enterprise integration, and they believe cost savings and revenue growth will follow from their commitment to an integration framework.
Emerson Process Management grew from a series of mergers and acquisitions that took place when the automation industry consolidated several years ago. Products sold by different Emerson businesses within the division often are closely related, yet each of the businesses tends to have its own support systems. With automation vendors focused on selling solutions that bundle products and services, the need for a unified view of customer engagements at Emerson has increased.
Says Andy Mayer, an Emerson IT manager, Oracle/EAI architecture, "Emerson Process Management uses the SeeBeyond integration architecture to achieve a common customer interface to five different ERP systems covering related products."
This kind of a deployment will become more common, Mayer adds, "as Emerson as a whole becomes a single global company—rather than a collection of autonomous divisions—capable of taking an order or making an order anywhere in the world."
George M. Parker, an IT manager for enterprise architecture, information systems & technology with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics, Ft. Worth, Texas, says his company not long ago famously tried to standardize on a single ERP system, and failed.
"We tried to replace everything with one big ERP system. In retrenching, we wanted an integrated architecture in the white space around applications—a common framework for all," says Parker.
Standardizing on SeeBeyond, which Lockheed has done, impacts several percolating IT projects at Lockheed, says Parker, including "real-time collaboration with suppliers by opening up legacy systems with Web front ends and good security, program management portals to allow sharing secure data with our closest partners, and strategic replacement of ERP systems and implementation of a common information backbone. SeeBeyond makes enterprise integration manageable, but not trivial."
At Emerson, the Oracle E-Business Suite is considered the ERP standard. Emerson has three instances of Oracle in three data centers for major group divisions, but it may be many years, says Mayer—if ever—before all units are on Oracle.
Even then, admits Mayer, after two years of work, the project at Emerson can seem daunting in its complexity—uniting internal and sales-rep systems so that customer purchase orders, invoices, parts information, supplier information, and other key data will all be found in a single place.
"Rolling that out across multiple divisions, it's hard to capture all the requirements up front, and the interface has grown more complex," concludes Mayer. "But if there were only one ERP system, it would by no means alleviate the need for integration."
