Harley Davidson 4a Analysis

4A framework

Availability – CISCO had risk mitigation plan for the legacy system. The workaround if the system fails was an unauthorized method to access the core application database

However for the new ERP system there was no backup plan, as the time & cost was so huge, plan A has to work. This is apparent from the fire-fighting they did to stabilize the ERP system in the first 3 months after it was live.

Access – Unlike legacy systems that had separate databases for different functions such as production and support; data for ERP was stored in data warehouse. This ensured that all the CISCO applications could access single source for their information needs.

Accuracy – During the setup phase of ERP, Cisco team along with Oracle & KPMG teams got into focused discussions for 3-4 weeks. The purpose was to chalk out how the system would be run, setting of parameters in these applications.

Change management process was formed to manage changes according to the severity. Severity one or modification requests tagged red went to steering committee.

Agility – Legacy Mainframes applications offered no flexibility & they had to be patch it (Termed as band-aiding the system by Randy Pond)

The ERP application was developed in agile framework referred to as “rapid iterative prototyping” by them. Using this approach team member broke the implementation into a series of phases called “Conference Room Pilots”

Risk infrastructure

While implementing ERP solution, risk handling was planned in advanced with Oracle, KPMG and hardware vendor. This helped after go-live when hardware architecture and sizing could not handle the volume. However, Cisco’s deal with hardware vendor to purchase equipment based on a promised capability rather than a specific configuration,