246 White and Croasdell
Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written
stages so that these problems do not become bigger. For example, some equipment
failures occurred due to faulty or substandard components provided by a vendor partner.
The ability to identify bad equipment and patterns of poor performance has allowed CT
to manage its vendor partnerships. Vendors are given the opportunity to repair or replace
defective components. Consistently underperforming vendors are replaced.
ERMS has also decreased the probability of piping and electrical equipment failure
and increased the reliability on electrical systems by finding “weak links” within the
system. For example, if an electrical part fails multiple times within a year, CT can look
at the electrical system as a whole and see if redesigning the system is required. The
application has decreased unnecessary condition inspections of piping and electrical
equipment.
As part of the implementation, ChevronTexaco has developed a plan for supporting
the system and its service level. CT had to be certain to incorporate competent IT
professionals and to have all employees continually communicate with one another. For
example, there was an instance when CT had a problem with entering data via the front
end of the ERMS module. The module would not accept the data. The problem was later
solved. It was discovered that one of the database administrators (DBA) was changing
the relationships between the tables and updating column names within the same tables
without informing coworkers of his actions.
Even though CT managers feel ERMS may be underutilized, the system has shown
itself to be exceptional in its ability to help maintain equipment reliability in the refineries.
The company judges the value of the system by its ability to provide a platform that
extracts data more quickly than the corporation’s old process (and from any place),
controls different sections of the company simultaneously, predicts equipment failures,
allows for a more efficient maintenance schedule, and produces more accurate reports
(which allows for faster responses). CT has numerous lessons learned from the ERMS
implementation. Changing the work process has been discovered to be difficult. Training
employees to use ERMS without disrupting daily work flow has been very challenging.
CT managers now realize how important it is to understand and utilize the entire work
process. Ignorance of this holistic “system” view eventually leads to more errors and
redesign of existing business practices. To this end, CT has worked hard to ensure that
all employees are on board with its new business practices.
DISCUSSION
All four companies presented have learned the importance of consolidating knowl-
edge resources. Such resources are needed for best practices to be incorporated and kept
within a company by minimizing corporate inefficiencies and redundancies. Nestlé USA
was able to address data redundancies across operating brands by implementing an ERP
solution to share knowledge and create consistency across functional units. The
solution also allowed Nestlé USA to manage vendor relationships and enjoy economies
of scale across product offerings.
In the case of Colgate-Palmolive, the corporation was spending excess funds trying
to manage dispersed data and applications. The problem was made worse because the
corporation spans multiple countries and continents around the globe. The case