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578 Part Four Building and Managing Systems
INTERACTIVE SESSION: ORGANIZATIONS
WESTINGHOUSE ELECTRIC TAKES ON THE RISKS OF A “BIG BANG”
PROJECT
Westinghouse Electric Company provides fuel, convert all existing data that the company wanted
services, technology, plant design, and equipment to save, as well as add new functionalities that
to utility and industrial customers in the worldwide would help the company manage its imminent
commercial nuclear electric power industry. A growth. Westinghouse hoped to add a new general
private company created in 1999 after its predeces- ledger, a new enterprise reporting environment
sor was sold and spun off, Westinghouse has 14,500 based on SAP NetWeaver Business Warehouse
employees in 17 countries and is headquartered in (BW) and SAP BusinessObjects solutions, and new
Cranberry Township, Pennsylvania. Shortly after implementations of SAP Customer Relationship
Westinghouse’s creation, the company implemented Management (CRM).
a full suite of SAP software across the enterprise. In order to ensure that the re-implementation
For the past 15 years, the nuclear energy went smoothly, Westinghouse took many precau-
industry was in a holding pattern, with steady tions to manage the risks involved in such a sig-
business throughout but minimal growth. nificant change. First, the company ensured that
Westinghouse supplied nuclear equipment and every element of the Cornerstone project was
services to plants all around the world, and the motivated by a particular business driver or goal.
business was successful. The initial SAP instal- For example, the SAP CRM implementation was
lation served Westinghouse just fine for nearly intended to address the company’s goal of aligning
an entire decade. From 2010 onward, the nuclear three distinct operational regions to present a single
energy industry started to expand. Westinghouse face in every customer location, and the SAP ERP
began to experience growth in sales, and its legacy Human Capital Management and SAP NetWeaver
SAP installation was not equipped to handle the Portal implementation were intended to support
increased volume of business. the company’s plan to increase global hiring. By
Westinghouse needed to update its older system associating goals with each element of the project,
to support new processes, configurations, and Westinghouse was able to more precisely control
functionalities that related to the larger amount of the implementation of the new system.
business it was conducting. The company estimated Once the elements of the new SAP system came
that it would increase in size fourfold over the next into place, Westinghouse had to decide how to
few years. Westinghouse opted to launch a sweep- actually roll out the new system. It could have used a
ing new program to update its IT. The program, gradual, phased approach, adding new systems over
called Synergy internally, consisted of 40 different a three-year period, but the company instead decided
projects, and updating the SAP system was one of on what it called a “big-bang approach.” Management
the largest. decided that the company was growing too fast for
Rather than simply upgrade its existing sys- a slow approach—it needed the new systems as
tems, Westinghouse opted to “re-implement” those soon as possible, and hoped to recoup the return on
systems with much more current SAP technology. investment sooner rather than later. However, while
Westinghouse did this because its 10-year-old SAP the phased approach was more expensive, it was also
ERP implementation was too outdated. It was easier much less risky. To manage the increased risk of the
for the company to simply replace the old SAP ERP big-bang approach, the company brought in a change
systems with a completely new configuration. The management consultant.
division of the Synergy project dedicated to the The consultant, John Flynn, helped Westinghouse
SAP re-implementation was known as Cornerstone, with both the Synergy and Cornerstone projects, but
aptly named because the new system would be the focused on the Cornerstone project. Flynn performed
foundation for the company’s future growth. a risk assessment study to identify business areas
Westinghouse wanted to start with a clean- that were most likely to undergo significant change.
core SAP environment with a completely new He found that the Westinghouse supply chain was
reconfiguration. The company’s goals were to one of the areas most likely to endure significant
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