Yongxin Paper Co., Ltd. 159Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without writtenIn March 2001, Yongxin proposed the company’s development plan to each department
and district. At the end of 2001, Yongxin founded the information center to make sure that
the network’s construction ran smoothly with Yin Jicai as the responsible manager for
network construction. He quickly realized that the ERP was more than a software system.
The ERP implementation required optimum operation flow and integration in the network
platform. Also, the design of business processes was unlikely to be carried out
thoroughly if the business departments were negative to the project (Desouza, 2003). As
a result, he considered it necessary for information center employees to be familiar with
basic computer knowledge and the company’s everyday operations. Thus, he appointed
computer professionals as well as business elites from finance, storage and distribution
departments, and other critical departments that played important roles in the process
of knowledge and management ideas transference.
The Company Organizational Structure
The ERP management system, which was characterized as “the first in command”
project, and affected the whole company, greatly changed the old balance system. This
change process could only be coordinated by top management (Mandal & Gunasekaran,
2003). Thus, Yongxin created a three-level project organizational structure within the
company to advance the ERP project consisting of a leaders group, project group, and
function group (Figure 2).
Zhang Wei, aged 41, general director, a graduate of Northeast Forestry University
and an EMBA student at Beijing University, is the head of the leader group. He is
considered a strong innovator. Yin Jicai, general manager, acts as associate leader. Other
associate general managers, chief engineers, and secretaries of all departments act as
members. Most of the members are energetic, well-educated, and young (aged 35-45),
who have served more than 10 years in their administrative positions. They are mainly
responsible for the whole information administrative system and operation-reconstruc-
tion project.
The project group, which consists of top managers and software manufacturer
consultants, is the coordinator between leading groups and departments.
The function group is the core group for implementing the ERP network system, and
consists of the top operations and software manufacturer operators. Such a rigorous
organizational structure becomes the powerful safeguard to the future knowledge
transference of ERP.
The First Stage of ERP Implementation
From November 2001 to the end of 2002, the company invested 6,000,000 RMB for
network construction and first-stage software development. Several information man-
agement systems were modified based on the needs of the computer information network
and ERP system.
The first-stage project started in February 2002 with the system going operational
in July. It included four phases: total demand analysis, business process project, antitype
testing, and data initialization and circulation tests. Yongxin improved the systems for
distribution, stock, storage, and finance departments as management considered these
the highest priority and difficult to implement. The application of modern, automated