[509] in magellan
EHSS Project Update - Sep 14, 2000
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Rob Smyser)
Thu Sep 14 11:51:42 2000
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Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 11:51:51 -0400
To: magellan@mit.edu
From: Rob Smyser <smyser@MIT.EDU>
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Project Name: EHSS - Environmental Health & Safety Management System
Project Leader: Rob Smyser, Rocklyn Clarke
Report Date Jun 21, 2000
Submitted by: Rob Smyser
URL: http://web.mit.edu/is/discovery/ehss/
Accomplishments past period:
- wrapped up the evaluation of EMAX as one approach to solving the inventory/
procurement issue. Their presentation quoted some numbers for the system
(including annual maintenance fees and line items for converting their
stock system
to MIT security specifications) that were higher than the anticipated
budget for
the whole project.
- have initiated (and significantly progressed on) evaluating SAP as an
EH&S solution.
Marc Carlson, an SAP consultant,led a presentation of SAP EH&S to many
folks from MIT and Lincoln Labs. Learning about SAP EH&S is a process of
"deciding how to eat the elephant". Apparently EH&S is part of the pitch
for Lincoln Lab buy-in to the idea of using SAP; John Cunningham of FSS has
a lot to do with the LL acceptance project.
Goals for the coming period:
- Create a compare/contrast depiction of alternative vendor solutions to
each scope item. This seems like the meat of the discovery findings.
- Begin to write discovery report.
- Begin to prepare for an October presentation to senior management of
these findings.
Issues:
- SAP EH&S requires linkage with HR, so we need to make sure our HR project
is aware of the EH&S needs.
- The current purchasing process short-circuits key SAP features that would
have facilitated EH&S inventory tracking. Procurement is resistant to
change that looks like it would require more work of them (turning on
Materials Masters in SAP, for instance, which was specifically avoided
during buy-pay reengineering, but which is specifically required for doing
EH&S in SAP).
- Need to look for Delivery-stage leadership, esp. re: SAP development, if
we go that route.
Key learnings:
- when considering an Enterprise-wide project, check first for whether SAP
has a module for that. MIT senior management is very keen on leveraging
the SAP investment.
- With regard to Virtual Campus, EPO is driven by some external deadlines
(EPA requirements, etc.) that are not always fully communicated to us. We
would have different meetings earlier if we had known.
Team dynamics:
New people piling on as the subject of inquiry shifted to SAP. Starting
to be a zoo.
Additional comments:
----------------
Rob Smyser MIT Information Systems, N42-290h
smyser@mit.edu 617.253.1358
