Union Carbide uses Artemis to implement world`s largest SAP installation

Union Carbide has built its reputation on delivering "simply great chemistry" to the world. As the 80-year old chemicals and polymers company recently tackled what is thought to be one of the world`s largest SAP implementations including all SAP modules as an integrated, enterprise solutions and the first of this magnitude in the chemical industry, it found great chemistry with leading project management vendor Artemis Management Systems.

Union Carbide makes the chemicals that make many modern day conveniences possible-the company`s chemicals are the building blocks of products such as plastic bags and bottles, antifreeze, medicines, crayons, cosmetics and many personal care products. A global workforce, some 12,000 strong spread out in more than 40 countries, is behind Carbide`s industry dominance.

In 1994, Carbide decided to phase out its legacy systems and roll out an ERP (enterprise resource planning) system to maintain its competitive edge; improving service levels in terms of speed, accuracy, and amount of information provided to customers and the enterprise. ERP systems run like a web through a company`s operations, connecting once disparate islands of information so multiple business processes can be automated and integrated. Like many companies, Carbide turned to business software powerhouse SAP to make this connectivity possible, and chose SAP`s flagship product, R/3, to do the job.

Carbide`s top IT executives knew R/3 would greatly ease the company`s operations. But they also knew its roll-out could be the challenge of their careers. This project would be challenging because of the complexity and disconnected nature of Carbide`s legacy systems and the integrated-nature of SAP. This transformation also required work process changes, culture changes and had to be completed in a compressed time frame of four years. The transformation to the new SAP-supported work processes occurred in three stages - Finance and Control; Plant Operations; and Supply Chain.

Slated to be managed from three IT control centers-located in Texas, West Virginia and Connecticut-the project would ultimately affect thousands of workers in eight different plants and dozens of standalone sites around the world, reduce 700 mainframe and mid-range software applications to 30, and link more than 185 locations. To pull off this global management feat, Carbide quickly agreed to use Artemis` ProjectView and TrackView, since Carbide had developed expertise with Artemis` products in the past. And in December 1994, Carbide`s IT department became the first customer to buy Artemis` project management products and services specifically to manage a SAP implementation.

Carbide turned to Artemis so that the massive programs, broken down into 100 projects, would have solid, consistent management-so managers would have a standard way of looking at and managing each slice of the implementation pie. Carbide purchased 25 licenses for Artemis` ProjectView, enabling project managers to plan, schedule and track critical deadlines, activities, resources and budgets, and 1,300 licenses of Artemis` TrackView, so they could assign and track staff activity around the world.

"During this large scale transformation, Artemis was able to help us understand how the pieces of the project related to and affected each other," said Ruth Bruch, CIO of Union Carbide. "Because of the integrated nature of SAP, we needed to understand those dependencies. Additionally, it allowed us to link multiple plans and create a critical path of implementation activities."

Creating visibility, highlighting "sensitive areas"

"A lot of our work was to create the visibility management needed in order to make decisions," says Mimi Davisson, Manager of UCC`s Project Office. On a weekly basis throughout the project, the group used ProjectView to generate reports that helped management understand which parts of the project were in need of attention. The reports allowed managers to see the sensitive areas-and figure out how to resolve issues before they evolved into crises. For example, Carbide used information from Artemis to manage its integration testing schedule. By tracking the feeder modules for testing, Carbide was able to adapt the testing strategy to deal with early, on-time and late feeders without jeopardizing the overall schedule.

The TrackView module was especially important as each Carbide plant entered its "cutover phase"-a four-day period during which the plant`s old systems are turned off and the new SAP ones are turned on. Carbide was able to record twice-daily status updates from multiple sites, which enabled it to have very up-to-date information about the cutover status.

Every day during cutover, as workers reported for duty, they would log on to TrackView and the software would generate a to-do list especially for that person. The list detailed all the day`s must-do tasks that the project manager assigned that person. "During cutover, everyone depended on TrackView for their daily to-do list," says Davisson. "Cut-overs happen very quickly, so everyone had to be extremely focused on what needed to get done. The lists kept everyone focused on the day`s goals, and that kept us on track."

Some site cut-overs will take place in 1999 (to complete implementation in North America and ready systems in Canada and subsidiaries for year 2000) but all domestic ones took place between January and November 1998-and every one of those went off without a hitch. Many plant managers directly attribute the smooth transition to ProjectView and TrackView and say they wouldn`t have wanted to go through the implementation without such robust management tools.

"We never missed a major milestone date, and that`s directly attributable to the reports generated by the Artemis software and the decisions the management team made based on those reports. We had very few issues or problems with the implementation because the plan was well laid out, tracked and managed," says Bruch.

The SAP implementation project went so well that Union Carbide gave Artemis another massive project to manage: the company opted to use Artemis` tools to track its year 2000 work, both domestically and internationally. That project, whose deadline is an unforgiving one, will run through December 1999.