Enterprise Resource Planning Program (ERP Program) Overview
ERP is an acronym for Enterprise Resource Planning, which is used to describe a specialized software package used to manage multiple business functions. ERP provides a variety of business applications to assist in the day-to-day execution and operation of Financial and Human Resource (HR) business processes.
The City of Albuquerque's ERP Program
In 2009, the City of Albuquerque implemented Oracle’s PeopleSoft (PS) application. While PS is an integrated Financials and Human Capital Management (HCM) system, the City does not currently have a fully integrated solution. Due to financial and resource constraints, some modules were implemented only at a surface level, while others were not implemented at all. This situation has not fundamentally changed since go-live. As a result, the City is still maintaining and utilizing several legacy applications at a considerable cost.
The ERP Program was formed under the City’s Department of Finance and Administrative Services in October, 2010. The Program’s primary goal is to maintain the Oracle PS Application which is utilized by all City Departments to manage financial and human resources information. In order to achieve this goal, the ERP Program is remediating (improving) current system modules and business processes and implementing new modules where necessary. Part of the process includes integrating the PS modules in the system resulting in an effective and efficient means of working and reporting across the enterprise. The program is divided into manageable phases and is scheduled to run through 2015.
The ERP Program, in partnership with CherryRoad Technologies (CRT), is currently modifying the application in order to:
- Significantly improve employee productivity
- Enhance the overall level of service to the City Department end users
- Increase operational effectiveness and efficiencies in City business processes
In 2011 the Citizens of the City of Albuquerque approved a General Obligation bond referendum that allocated $9.15 million to fund the ERP Strategic Roadmap projects.
The ERP Strategic Roadmap
The ERP Strategic Roadmap presented below represents completed initiatives and current projects which are scheduled through August 2013. Additional projects are being planned based on business need and a return on investment analysis. These initiatives will be prioritized and added to the Strategic Roadmap as additional information is gathered. Future projects may include Employee Self Service for Time Entry, Benefits Open Enrollment, Learning Management, Procurement, Treasury, Inventory, Performance Management, and an upgrade of the City’s PS application from version 9.0 to 9.2.
Completed Projects
Since ERP’s commencement, the Program has completed the following initiatives:
- The infrastructure upgrade project, completed in early 2011, ensured sufficient storage and date retrieval capabilities within our PS instance.
- In late 2011, the Oracle Hyperion Public Sector Planning and Budgeting Application was implemented as the City’s operational budget preparation and tracking tool. Initial annual labor and benefits redeployment savings are estimated at $38,000. Based on the implementation cost of approximately $850,000, the perpetual annual return on investment of this project is 4.5%.
More important, replacement of the legacy budgeting application with Hyperion sets the stage, upon completion of the in-progress Financial Remediation & Deployment project, to retire the City’s mainframe infrastructure. This decommissioning will result in annual mainframe support savings of approximately $450,000.
- Through a comprehensive search and proposal process completed in April, 2012, the City selected CherryRoad Technologies as the systems integrator to partner on the execution of the ERP Strategic Roadmap.
- The Solid Waste Management Department implemented the Kronos system for employee time entry. The implementation was complete in October, 2012.
- In mid-September 2012, CRT conducted an assessment of the City’s current PS financial system and recommended opportunities for financial remediation and implementation.
- In late September 2012, CRT conducted a time collection study to assess the City’s current employee time entry methods and recommend a future state strategy.
