Recently I asked for a report on cost of a repair on my street.An observer had observed manpower and equipment which appeared excessive for what seemed to be a relatively small project. I recalled a purchase of $444,000 software approved by Council in November 2011. From the purpose explained, I thought it should provide all details necessary to explain to my watchful neighbour what she had observed.
Ah pauvre moi.
Turned out it didn't. The program is not yet up and running.
Even more recently I sought from various venues an update on the status of the program .
The table below is a memorandum circulated ,to be on Council's agenda on July 17th '
Readers will note total cost of the project is $758,000.
It first appeared as a budget item in January 2007.
A staff report was received in August 2010.
As can be seen from the table the project is not expected to be completed until 2014.
Now I must confess the source of my anxiety.
I have heard the same program was implemented by the Region of York.
I have heard it has been abandoned.
The program requires employees in the field to provide feed back with computer hardware all details of work orders when completed.
Computer operator functions added to the physical labour of work orders in the field have proven to be neither practical nor feasible.
I am not sure, under the circumstances, if anyone would be willing to confirm the rumour ..
The cost thus far in Aurora is $758,000.
The Region's cost would have to be multiplied many times .It would undoubtedly be in the millions.
A waste of public resources in horrendous proportions.
Not something the Region would be happy to proclaim.
Nor Aurora either.
Wednesday 11 July 2012
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14 comments:
Can't you just ask someone at the region whether or not they have been through a failed attempt at implementing Maximo, and what it cost? If they do not answer, is this the type of information that can be gotten through the freedom of information act?
I am an IT Manager with a PMP designation, albeit not for a public corporation like a municipality.
I looked at the charts provided (much truncation of the right) but I can see the root project plan laid out. Without knowledge of the software I can see that what ever project manager put this together, they have put a heavy weight on contingencies and has made the schedule quite liberal. I am happy to see that they have included the piece that revisits the project for follow up and training. You will end up paying for it later otherwise, so you might as well put it in.
Some things to remember when you implement a large software system.
The people that are going to use it, actually have a job to do as well as work on the implementation. I would think that no one at the Town allocated any dedicated resources to work with the vendors on the project. They did the work on this WHEN they had their real work finished. This would account for the long implementation schedule.
As for the Region abandoning the system because of problems in the field tell me that the problems were much higher than the field. If management endorsed the software, the field staff would use it. Yes it is a fundimental change in how they do things. Change is never welcome. I think that there was perhaps some union issues around it as well.
He bottom line is, someone within the Town felt this was a worthwhile investment in time and money. Council obviously agreed. Everyone involved knows the timeline, it should not be a surprise. Management must embrace it in order for the field to use it. If that is where the breakdown occurs, you have the wrong people managing the staff.
"An observer had observed manpower and equipment which appeared excessive for what seemed to be a relatively small project."
What are the credentials of this observer? Should he/she not be working at the Town?
Bummer! Another one rushed through over objections.
Yup. Another STAFF pushed deal for which they take no responsibility. It will be a frosty Friday before the Chief stands before Council & admits to an error. But there is no excuse - this is no longer a NEW Council & was not when this decision was made. Interesting that you have to dig out the information, that no one bothered to mention that the project had tanked. Surprise!
Try to look on the bright side. If this stuff doesn't get installed, we don't need to hire new staff to operate it. And if we don't have to hire new staff, and pay them, we do not need to re-design the damn Town Hall to make room for them. Works for me.
I have read this post several times with the same result. There is a tape of the Mayor saying the system was in place and all that was needed was to request the information. Now it would appear that there is no system in place. You cannot have it both ways. Either he was lied to or he lied on the tape? Sorry about that but it does not look good.
Three letters.....
S A P
Read through IT journals about how many companies have tried and failed to implement this massive software package. We are talking in terms of $ millions.
The root cause is not SAP. Companies look to this software as the magic silver bullet to all of their problems. However, to use SAP properly, you need to be able to change the business flow to match SAP. These companies have gone into the process thinking that they can change SAP. It doesn't happen.
I am not familiar with the Maximo software, however it sounds to me that the software requires a certain change in busiess flow. If the busines is not able or willing, it will fail.
Here are some links...
Maximo is a massive IBM package...
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/maximo-asset-mgmt/
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/tivoli/products/maximo-government/
There are a lot of variations of this. I am not surprised at the size of the project timeline.
Aurora needs to get out of this boondoggle - NOW.
As I recall, 2 councillors, Ballard & Humphreyes, set themselves up to deal with ' communications issues'. This would appear to have happened on their 'watch'. Time to do a fast-turn around. Sort of like with the termination clause so it should not be novel for either of them. Just saying.
Goodness. What will this do to the big plans to expand staff even though the town population will not continue to grow? A speed-bump in well-paid staff would be a welcome event. Maybe then they would have time for little things like the Aurora birthday celebration. " Well, sorry, lady, we do not have enough time or people to handle that event!" Like you were hired to deal with whatever came up, not to get your wishes fulfilled and plead inability or lack of staffing.
It does go back a fair while but I do recall the Chief...yeah, I know, no names of staff...indicating that Council was too dumb to understand this project and should just go along with it. They did. Now we see the results of being taking for granted - you get s....ed.
About six years ago, the Hudson Bay Company was set to launch their new and perfected Oracle program to help manage inventory, and increase customer service.Staff were made aware that on a specific day the system would be launched;their jobs would become easier and increase performance.
At noon on that day the switch was thrown; the system crashed with no back up.The old system was unable to be set back up.The warehouse staff were now hand picking orders and searching like fools.It was like working in the dark.The company lost one million dollars a day and it went on for months.Mr.Zucker a U.S. investor shortly after the fiasco bought the failing company.
I still believe this system that was criticized from the get-go helped send another Canadian company south of the border.
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