644 Part IV • The Information Management System
long-range systems needs of the entire company. It
would be nice if we could get something in Mexico
that we can use for the entire company.
In January 2000, Kyle Baxter established a small task
force to develop a plan for systems support of the Mexican
plant and report to the BMC executive committee. The des-
ignated task force leaders were Collins and Virginia
(Ginnie) Mease, BMC’s controller. The task force also
included Sue Barkley, Jesus Salazar, and Maria Alvarez.
The stated mission of the task force was:
To implement the desired business processes and to
select, implement, and support the appropriate busi-
ness system that will exceed the needs of BMC
Mexico.
The goals of the task force included the following:
1.Business processes will be defined to facilitate opti-
mum effectiveness.
2.Software will match the business processes.
3.Software will enable integrated processes.
4.The business system selected can also be implemented
throughout BMC.
5.Language and currency needs will be met.
6.The business system investment will provide the best
cost/benefit.
7.Support of the system will be available in Mexico.
For some time BMC managers had been thinking
about the possibility of acquiring an enterprise resource
planning (ERP) system to replace and expand the opera-
tional systems of the company, and an ERP would meet
most of the previously stated goals, so the initial focus of
the task force was to investigate the possibility of acquiring
an ERP.
Collins was a member of an IS management group
sponsored by a local university, and through this contact
he was able to get access to three nearby companies who
had experience with an ERP. Collins and Mease devel-
oped an interview guide covering the questions they
thought were important, interviewed managers at the three
companies, and summarized the results of the interviews.
Two things stood out from the interviews: First, there was
not enough time to implement an ERP package properly
by the end of the year, and, second, BMC management
could not simultaneously cope with the disruption of
starting a new plant and the disruption of installing an
ERP. Therefore, on May 25, 2000, the BMC executive
committee decided to eliminate the goal of considering
the long-term needs of BMC from the task force charter
and to concentrate exclusively on developing systems
support for the Mexican plant.
Alternatives Considered
After the decision to abandon consideration of an ERP,
Collins and Mease defined the following three approaches
to supporting the Mexican plant:1.Connect the Mexican plant to BMC’s existing sys-
tems through a high-speed communications line.
2.Contract through an application service provider (ASP)
to provide systems support to the Mexican plant.
3.Employ a piecemeal solution where they would
acquire a number of software packages that could run
on the networked PCs in Mexico that would serve the
basic needs of the Mexican plant.Initially the Mexican plant would be a relatively
small operation, and transaction volumes would be quite
small. Collins and Mease felt that at the start they would
only need to handle basic things—control inventory, ship,
print reports, handle EDI to and from the major cus-
tomer—the things necessary for the operation to run. On
the other hand, they expected the Mexican operation to
grow rapidly, so transaction volumes and the complexity of
managing production would grow over time.
The first alternative—using the existing BMC sys-
tems in Mexico through a high-speed communications
line—was quickly eliminated. In the first place, there was
the language problem. BMC’s existing systems were in
English and would have to be translated into Spanish for
use in Mexico, and that was deemed impractical. Second,
because of the language problem, they could not support
these systems in Mexico. The availability of local support
was a crucial factor in determining how to serve the sys-
tems needs of the Mexican plant. There must be people
who can help install the applications software, handle any
problems that arise, and train people in using the software.
And there must be support for the hardware platform that
the applications run on.
An application service provider (ASP) is a company
that has one or more large data centers and furnishes a
portion of that processing and file storage capacity to each
of its clients via communications facilities. For years it has
been anticipated that, sometime in the future, information
processing power would be available through a wall plug
just like electrical power. An ASP is the current embodiment
of that dream. Thus, the customer of an ASP does not have
to invest in computer hardware and systems software or
manage a data center. Rather, the customer pays a monthly
fee to the ASP based on the amount of file storage, RAM,
and computer processing cycles used. The customer also
pays for the use of the communications facilities used.
The ASP may also provide some applications soft-
ware, but the customer usually buys applications software