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PH2 - Interview with ERP System Fusion Manager - Mike Beil

Mike Beil is a Senior Lead of ERP Fusion. His job focuses on ensuring that current systems integrate well with the upcoming SAP platform. He mainly works with data migration, validation, and ensuring the process of fusion aligns with the strategic goals that leadership aims to achieve with this implementation. Mike has served as a system engineer and as a cybersecurity expert prior to this position and has a deep understanding of how the vertically integrated utility works with its business functions. Mike and I sat down to talk about the technical considerations that Avista has to make when integrating into this large ERP system. My questions, unlike others, focused on understanding the backbone of our ERP systems and what is being done to ensure we mitigate some identified risks that come with it. During our conversation Mike spoke about the broader operational goals behind the ERP implementation. From his perspective, much of the motivation behind the project comes from the recogn...
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PH2 - Interview with Avista Project Manager - Shannon Wade

Shannon Wade is a project manager at Avista Utilities. She joined the project management office to lead work for the upcoming Avista ERP implementation project. Previously she worked in the enterprise technologies department and has experience managing different system based projects from initiation up to deployment. I sat down with Shannon to mainly talk about how her role as a project manager would be affected by the ERP implementation and the pros and cons she sees for managers and employees once this system is deployed. During our conversation Shannon first spoke about the pace of change that the project management office has already been experiencing. The PMO recently transitioned to a new Cloud solution (this was around the same time I joined the company) and the team is still adjusting to that system through fixes, training, and ongoing changes. Because of this, the upcoming SAP ERP implementation represents another major shift for the same group of employees. From her perspecti...
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PH1 - Multi Tier ERP Systems

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are typically designed to centralize business processes into a unified information system integrating various business operations. The goal is to create a single source of truth for organizational data and processes. However, many organizations operate multiple ERP systems simultaneously, a structure sometimes called two-tier ERP. In this architecture, a company may run one ERP at the corporate level and separate ERP systems in subsidiaries or divisions, allowing local units to maintain independent processes or specialized workflows. Especially considering big organizations with international reach and multiple branches, it sometimes becomes necessary to use multi-ERP systems to integrate business functions that operate in different contexts. This approach contradicts the ideal of a fully centralized ERP architecture, but in practice it is very common in large enterprises. This leads me to question whether ERP systems follow their own premi...
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PH2 - Interview with On Campus Advisor - Dawn Keig

Dawn Keig is a professor of strategic management in the business department at Whitworth University. She teaches various classes related to management, information systems, and organizational structure. She has been an advisor for my interdisciplinary major for two years and has ample experience in project management, as well as serving as a systems integration lead. When I reached out to Dawn and told her about my project, she expressed interest and mentioned that she had experience integrating ERP systems across various industries before her time in higher education. My main goal for this interview was to get her technical opinion by leveraging her expertise in the subject so she could tell me the pros, the cons, and the opportunities I may not have seen. I also hoped she could point me toward things I had not thought about and guide my project process. During our conversation, Dawn explained that throughout the history of businesses there has been a pendulum swinging between central...
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PH2 - Interview with Delaware Consulting Project Manager - Chitra Bose

Background:  PREFACE: Raw interview transcript is posted on the blog.  Chitra Bose is a project manager for ERP implementation at Delaware Consulting. Delaware is the partner company that assists with implementation, workshops, validation, software integration, and organizational change management for Avista's ERP implementation project. Chitra has been in the business for 30 years and has extensive experience in ERP systems, their benefits, and their potential drawbacks. Summary of The Interview: This interview provides a practitioner’s perspective on ERP systems, especially in the utility industry. Most of our conversation revolved around integration, efficiency, implementation risks, change management, AI integration, and workforce adaptation. Chitra emphasizes that ERP systems serve as a “single source of truth” that improves organizational coordination but also require careful selection, training, and change management.  Chitra mainly argues that the vital benefit of...
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PH1 - History Of ERP Systems

Before analyzing the pros, cons, and potential of ERP systems, I think it is very important to provide a brief overview of the history of these systems. When starting this project, I assumed ERP systems were recent phenomena in large enterprises. I was led to believe that because the way I was exposed to them at my place of employment made it feel like not only something new to the company, but also something new for the wider industry. However, after doing some research, I found out that I was wrong.  The history of Enterprise Resource Planning systems goes back to the 1960s. At the time, many companies and industries in the United States focused on manufacturing, and there was a need to use computerized technology to keep track of raw materials and products in terms of procurement. The first form of these centralized systems was called MRP, or Materials Requirements Planning. J.I. Case , a manufacturer of tractors and construction machinery, worked with IBM to develop one of th...
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