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32 Chapter 1 • Introduction to Enterprise Systems for Management

5. Why is the design and selection of ERP architecture 7. From the examples provided in the chapter on ERP
crucial for the implementation project? What are success and failure stories, what are the critical
the long-term implications of selecting a wrong factors of success and failures?
architecture? 8. What are the critical steps of the ERP project
6. Discuss the criteria for selecting ERP vendors. cycle? Discuss the critical success factors.
Which is the most important criterion and why?

Discussion Questions

1. Refer to the Hershey case. What were the goals and Provide examples of the hardware, software,
details of the Enterprise 21 project? people, processes, and databases.
2. Refer to the Hershey case. What were some of the 5. If you had a choice between customizing an ERP
key problems that Hershey encountered when application to meet the organization processes and
choosing, integrating, and implementing their new modifying organization processes to meet the ERP
ERP system? functionality, which would you choose? Explain.
3. Refer to the Hershey case. What difficult lessons 6. Where are ERP systems heading in the future? Do
did Hershey learn from this entire process? Did you agree or disagree with the trends discussed in
Hershey ultimately achieve its original goals by the chapter? Explain.
implementing this new ERP system? 7. Why is it necessary for the project triangle to be
4. Provide examples of ERP components in an organi- balanced at all times for project success? Discuss
zation that you know of or where you are working. the implications of an unbalanced project triangle.

CASE 1.2
Real-World Case
Rolls Royce’s ERP Implementation

Source: Based on Greg Sumner, Case Study Report, U Mass Lowell, 2006.

Rolls Royce (RR) is a global company with several divisions in more than 14 countries.
It operates in four global markets: civil aerospace, defense aerospace, marine, and energy. 9
In 1996, Rolls Royce outsourced 90 percent of its IT functions to a contractor called
Electronic Data Services (EDS), which meant that EDS was responsible for overseeing the
existing IT structure as well as providing adequate IT solutions for the future prosperity of
10
the company. RR used more than 1,500 legacy (mainframe) systems that were inaccurate,
expensive to operate, and difficult to maintain.
A need for an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system was noted during the late
1990s at RR to handle the volume of data being produced and processed from the new
acquisitions and overall growth experienced by the company. In 2001, RR decided that
SAP/R3, an ERP platform consisting of 12 functional modules, would be implemented at
its aerospace division. There were multitudes of challenges that RR had to overcome in
order for a successful implementation to occur.

9 Rolls-Royce Web site. www.rolls-royce.com/index_flash.jsp (accessed October 2010).
10 Kelly, L. (December 2003). Outsourcing Case Study: Rolls-Royce. Computing.